I^USSIA 


Under  the  Tzars 


A 


RUSSIA 


UNDER   THE   TZARS 


BY 

STEPJSriAK 

Author  of  " Undergroujoj  Russia;"  formerly  Editor  of 

ZSilLIA  I  VOLIA 


RENDERED  INTO  ENGLISH  BY  WILLIAM  WEST  ALL 


A  UTRORIZED  EDITION 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 
1885  / 


CONTENTS. 

PART  I. 

THE     PAST. 

CHAPTER  I. 

PAGE 

The  Mia 1 

CHAPTER  II. 
The  Vetche 8 

CHAPTER  III. 
A  Russian  Republic 15 

CHAPTER  IV. 
SuEvivAL  OF  Self-Government 19 

CHAPTER  V. 
The  Making  of  the  Despotism 24 

CHAPTER  VI. 
The  Powee  of  the  Chuech 32 

CHAPTER  VII. 
The  Russian  Theocracy 88 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
The  Great  Reformer 44 

CHAPTER  IX. 
Emancipation 53 

MbO /  r  51 


Vi  COISTTEISTTS. 

PART  11. 
DARK  PLACES. 


CHAPTER  X. 

PAGE 

A  Nocturnal  Search 58 


CHAPTER  XI. 
The  Pouce C 


CHAPTER  XII. 
The  House  of  Preventative  Detention 78 

CHAPTER  XIII. 
Poor  TniRTY-NiNE 86 

CHAPTER  XIV. 
The  Tzar's  Justice 94 

CHAPTER  XV. 
The  Question 97 

CHAPTER  XVI. 
Political  Trials 103 

CHAPTER  XVII. 
iliuTARY  Tribunals Ill 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 
After  Judome.vt 123 

CHAPTER  XIX. 
The  Troubetzkoi  Ravelin 140 

CHAPTER  XX. 
Siberia 101 

CHAPTER  XXr. 
Mutual  Responsibility 160 


CONTENTS.  yii 

PART  III. 

s 

ADMINISTRATIVE    EXILE. 
CHAPTER  XXII. 

PAGE 

Innocent  Therefore  Punished 175 

CHAPTER  XXIII. 
Life  in  Exile 193 

CHAPTER  XXIV. 
i/^ K  Destroyed  Generation 228 

CHAPTER  XXV. 
Higher  Education 239 

CHAPTER  XXVI. 
Secondary  Education 263 

CHAPTER  XXVII. 
Primary  Instruction 275 

CHAPTER  XXVIII. 
The  Zemstvo 295 

CHAPTER  XXIX. 
The  Despotism  and  the  Press 313 

.                                            CHAPTER  XXX. 
^  The  Press  under  Alexander  II 881 

CHAPTER  XXXI. 
A  Sample  from  the  Bulk 345 

CHAPTER  XXXII. 
RussLA.  AND  Europe 859 


PKEFACE. 


EussiA  is  passing  through  a  crisis  of  gi-eat  importance 
in  her  social  and  political  life.  Within  a  brief  space  of 
time  the  revolutionary  movement  has  attained  a  marvelous 
growth^  and  is  spreading  more  and  more  among  the  classes 
which  have  heretofore  been  the  chief  supporters  of  the 
established  order.  The  very  ferocity  of  a  reaction  bewil- 
dered by  personal  fear  is  dragging  it  to  its  inevitable 
doom,  and,  like  bhe  French  usurper  of  December  2d, 
the  morally  ruined  Government  of  the  Tzar  is  meditating 
that  most  desperate  of  all  expedients  for  the  restoration 
of  vanished  prestige — a  bloody  and  useless  war. 

The  growing  disquietude  of  the  masses,  manifested  in 
wild  outbursts  against  the  Jews,  and  in  less  irrational, 
though  hardly  less  frequent,  riots  and  disturbances,  as 
well  in  agricultural  districts  as  in  manufacturing  centers — 
whether  as  protests  against  exacting  landlords,  tyrannical 
masters,  or  oppressive  laws  for  the  regulation  of  factory 
labor,  are  facts  that  cannot  be  gainsaid,  and  the  signifi- 
cance of  which  it  is  impossible  to  overlook.  They  show 
what  everybody  feels  in  his  heart,  if  he  does  not  speak  it 
aloud — that  momentous  changes  are  pending,  and  that 
Russia  is  on  the  eve  of  great  events. 

None  would  be  so  rash  as  to  attempt  to  forecast  the 


Ill  PREFACE. 

nature  of  these  events  or  guess  what  the  fates  may  have 
in  store  for  the  empire  of  the  Tzar.  But  of  one  thing 
there  can  be  no  question  :  revolutionary  changes  cannot 
take  place  in  a  country  so  vast,  and  whose  population  is 
a  third  of  that  of  all  Europe,  without  affecting  directly 
or  indirectly,  every  other  country  of  the  civilized  world. 

This  fact  is  the  justification  and  explanation  of  the 
growing  interest  that  is  everywhere  felt  in  Kussia  and  her 
people,  and  in  the  hidden  forces  which  are  working  out 
her  destinies  and  shaping  her  future. 

Many  valuable  contributions  have  been  made  on  the 
subject  to  the  literature  of  the  day  by  foreign  writers — 
French,  English,  and  German.  But  hitherto  the  Euro- 
pean public  have  seldom,  if  ever,  heard  the  views  of  those 
who,  being  the  most  interested  in  the  question,  are  nat- 
urally the  most  competent  to  give  an  opinion — the  Rus- 
sians themselves. 

Russian  writers,  among  whom  are  many  able  men  of 
honorable  name  and  great  erudition,  remain  silent ;  they 
do  not  raise  their  voices  to  tell  the  truth  about  their 
oppressed  country.  The  cause  of  this  strange  silence  is 
easy  of  explanation.  It  were  as  perilous  an  undertaking 
for  a  subject  of  the  Tzar  to  reveal  to  the  outside  world 
the  iniquities  of  his  Government  as  openly  to  attack  him 
in  the  presence  of  his  police.  Except  a  few  anonymous 
articles  of  slight  importance,  our  best  writers  have,  as  yet, 
said  nothing  on  the  politics  of  Russia  in  the  languages 
of  Europe.  The  Government  party  alone  and  their  allies 
have  been  able  to  turn  to  account  the  publicity  of  the 
Press ;  but  their  contributions  to  the  question,  it  is  hardly 


PREFACE.  Xlll 

necessary  to  say,  do  not  tend  to  the  enlightenment  of 
public  opinion. 

In  these  circumstances  the  task  of  speaking  for  the 
opposite  party — that  is  to  say,  for  the  whole  of  educated 
Russia — falls  naturally  to  the  extreme  fraction  of  the  op- 
position— revolutionists.  Socialists,  and  refugees  of  every 
class — who  from  time  to  time  have  tried  to  win  the  ear 
of  Europe.  And  now  this  duty  falls  on  me — a  "Nihilist 
writer,"  a  *' practical  Nihilist,"  as  some  English  news- 
papers have  been  good  enough  to  call  me — a  man  whose 
sole  claim  to  the  indulgence  of  the  English  public  is  the 
authorship  of  a  book  having  for  its  object  the  explanation 
and  defense  of  Nihilism — a  claim  which  is  far  from  being 
the  most  efficient  for  such  a  work  as  mine.  I  would 
willingly  have  left  the  task  to  the  member  of  a  less  ad- 
vanced school,  who  might  be  less  open  than  myself  to 
the  charge  of  a  too  great  pessimism  in  his  appreciation 
of  the  existing  system.  But  there  being  no  such  writer 
at  hand,  I  have  no  alternative.  The  work  must  be  done 
by  me  ;  and  whatever  other  merits  or  demerits  my  book 
may  possess,  it  has  at  least  been  done  impartially. 

Knowing  beforehand  the  points  as  to  which  my  readers 
are  likely  to  be  most  distrustful,  I  resolved  above  all 
things  to  avoid  exaggeration,  and  I  have  aimed  through- 
out at  saying  too  little  rather  than  too  much.  In  this 
there  is  no  difficulty,  for  the  wrongs  done  by  the  Rus- 
sian Government  are  so  immeasurable  that  they  may  be 
attenuated  with  no  more  seeming  effect  than  is  made  on 
the  fathomless  ocean  by  taking  from  it  a  glass  of  water ; 
whilst,  on  the   other  hand,  a   slight  overstatement  on  a 


XIV  PREFACE. 


comparatively  immaterial  point  might  impair  the  value,  if 
not  render  abortive,  montlis  of  careful  and  conscientious 
labor.  Yet  I  neither  intend  nor  desire  to  put  the  exist* 
iug  regime  in  any  better  light  than  it  deserves.  Not  at  all. 
Though  I  '" nothing  set  down  in  malice,"  I  "nothing 
extenuate."  I  tell  only  the  plain,  unvarnished  truth,  but 
it  is  the  full  truth.  In  the  selection  of  my  facts  I  have 
taken  the  greatest  care,  rejecting  everything  that  seemed 
without  warrant  or  not  altogether  trustworthy. 

I  have  not  swollen  the  dimensions  of  my  book  with 
unnecessary  references  and  notes.  The  things  I  have 
told  may  be  new  to  foreigners,  but  to  Eussians  and  to 
all  who  know  Russian  literature  they  are  matters  of 
common  knowledge. 

In  my  historical  sketches  I  have  availed  myself  of  the 
works  of  our  best  historical  writers  (Kostomaroff,  Solovieff, 
SergueWtch,  and  Belaeff),  works  which  are  to  be  found  in 
every  Russian  library.  The  matters  set  forth  in  the  second 
volume  are  taken  from  official  sources,  and  from  statements 
which  have  been  allowed  to  appear  in  the  censured  Press 
at  times  when  it  has  enjoyed  brief  snatches  of  unwonted 
freedom. 

The  six  chapters  of  the  second  volume  have  appeared 
at  various  times  in  the  most  influential  of  English  papers, 
and  I  have  to  thank  the  Times  for  its  eloquent  and 
appreciative  comments  on  my  communications,  and  the 
proprietors  for  the  kind  permission  to  include  them  in 
the  book.     All  the  rest  of  the  two  volumes  is  original. 

It  is  evident  that,  as  touching  the  first  part  of  the  book, 
I  could  not  avail  myself  to  any  great  extent  of  official 


PEEFACE.  XV 

publications  or  newspaper  statements.  The  cruelties 
inflicted  on  prisoners  and  the  iniquities  of  the  admin- 
istration can  seldom  be  openly  mentioned  in  the  censured 
Press,  and  then  only  in  guarded  and  evasive  language. 
The  excellent  publications  of  the  Narodnia  Volia  printing- 
oflBce  at  Geneva,  which  are  as  carefully  compiled  and  as 
trustworthy  as  they  are  rich  in  material,  have  been  my 
chief  sources  of  information.  Many  of  my  statements  are 
drawn  either  from  my  own  personal  experience  or  from 
the  experiences  of  friends  who  have  been  good  enough 
to  place  them  at  my  disposal.  I  have  merely  put  their 
narratives  into  literary  shape. 

A  word  as  to  the  form  of  my  book.  It  is  irreguiar 
and  not  strictly  didactic,  for  I  have  tried  not  alone  to 
narrate  events  but  to  describe  men.  Critics  will  perhaps 
say  that  this  double  aim  derogates  from  the  dignity  of  a 
serious  work.  They  may  be  right.  I  will  only  observe 
that  on  this  point  moderation  and  sobriety  have  been  my 
rule. 

These  explanations  rendered,  there  remains  for  me  only 
one  more  duty  to  perform — the  agreeable  duty  of  thanking 
those  who  have  given  me  their  aid  in  the  writing  of  my 
book. 

Being  as  yet  new  in  the  country,  and  unable  to  write 
the  English  language  with  ease,  I  am  indebted  to  Mr. 
William  Westall,  who  has  long  been  a  warm  sympathizer 
with  the  Russian  revolutionary  cause,  and  my  literary 
fellow-worker,  for  giving  the  work  its  English  shape ; 
and  I  heartily  thank  him  for  his  careful  and  idiomatic 
translation. 


xvi  PREFACE. 

As  for  the  matter  of  the  book,  I  owe  many  thanks  to 
some  of  my  countrymen.  Mr.  Peter  LavrofF,  to  whom 
I  am  indebted  for  the  very  kind  Introduction  to  my 
*•  Underground  Russia/'  which  so  greatly  contributed  to 
the  success  of  my  first  work,  has  been  good  enough  to 
place  his  rich  library  at  my  disposal  for  the  preparation 
of  "  Russia  Under  the  Tzars,"  my  second  work.  To 
Mr.  Isidor  Goldsmith,  formerly  editor  of  Ztianie  and 
Slovo,  Mr.  Nicolas  Tsakny,  and  Mr.  L.  N.,  all  of  whom 
have  spent  years  in  exile,  I  am  obliged  for  much  of  the 
interesting  information  which  I  have  utilized  in  the 
chapters  on  that  subject. 

But  most  of  all  I  have  to  thank  Mr.  Michel  Dragomanoff, 
formerly  one  of  the  professors  at  Kieff  University,  who, 
from  the  very  beginning  of  my  campaign  against  the 
Russian  despotism — first  in  the  pages  of  the  Contejnporary 
Review,  and  afterwards  in  the  columns  of  the  Times — has 
given  me,  without  stint  of  time  or  trouble,  much  valuable 
assistance,  and  in  connection  with  the  present  work  has 
supplied  me  with  many  original  and  authentic  documents 
relating  to  police  persecution  in  the  three  satrapies  of  the 
South. 

S.  STEPNIAK. 

T.0ND0N,  April  7,  1885. 


AUTHOR'S   PREFACE   TO  THE  AMERICAN- 
EDITION. 


I  READILY  comply  with  the  kind  desire  of  Messrs.  Charles 
Scribner's  Sons,  of  New  York,  in  declaring  that  I  authorize 
this  American  reprint  of  my  "  Russia  under  the  Tzars." 

It  is  among  Englishmen  that  my  attempts  to  expose  the 
truth  about  Russian  conditions  found  the  most  indulgent 
ear,  and  my  appeals  in  favor  of  Russian  liberty  the  most 
touching  sympathy.  And  I  was  extremely  pleased  and  proud 
to  learn  that  on  the  other  side  of  the  ocean,  the  people  of 
the  great  nation  to  whom  Europe  owes  so  much  for  its 
present  liberty,  has  shown  also  an  interest  in  my  modest 
efforts.  I  can  only  congratulate  myself  with  this  new  proof 
of  their  kindness,  and  hope  that  the  "  Russia  under  the 
Tzars"  may  contribute  its  part  in  inducing  the  public 
opinion  of  the  great  American  Nation  to  unite  its  powerful 
voice  in  favor  of  Russian  liberty,  and  in  condemnation  of 
the  Tzarism. 

This  will  be  one  of  the  guaranties  of  the  prompt  cessation 
of  the  horrors,  one  small  part  of  which  the  reader  will  find 
described  in  this  volume. 

S.  STEPNIAK. 

London,  April  26,  1885. 


PART  I. 
THE    PAST. 

CHAPTER  I. 

THE  MIR. 

Natioi^s,  like  men,  are  Judged  by  their  appearance.  The 
despotism  which  rules  the  Russian  people  is  naturally  re- 
garded as  the  outcome  and  expression  of  the  national  char- 
acter. It  is  true  that  of  late  years  Russia  has  produced  both 
men  and  women  who,  in  patriotic  zeal  and  devotion  to 
freedom,  have  never  been  outdone  ;  yet,  in  the  seeming 
futility  of  their  efforts,  the  public  opinion  of  Europe  sees 
but  an  additional  proof  of  the  stubborn  servility  of  the 
masses,  equally  unable  to  understand  any  liberal  aspiration 
and  unwilling  to  take  part  in  any  liberal  movement. 

The  facts  cannot  be  gainsaid.  The  tillers  of  the  soil,  who 
form  the  bulk  of  the  Russian  nation,  still  profess  devotion  to 
an  ideal  Tzar — the  creature  of  their  own  imagination — believe 
that  tiie  day  is  at  hand  when  he  will  drive  all  lando\vners 
out  of  the  country,  and  bestow  their  possessions  on  his 
faithful  peasants. 

But  if  we  go  beyond  mere  externals,  if  we  study  more 
deeply,  and  observe  more  closely,  the  character  and  lives  of 
our  lower  orders,  we  shall  be  struck  by  many  peculiarities 
1 


4  RUSSIA   UNDEll  THE  TZARS. 

opposition,  it  is  essential  for  the  acUoeates  ol  eonflicting 
l\L  to  be  brought  face  to  faee,  and  compelled  to  tight  out 

ihnir  differences  iu  sinirlc  combat.  _ 

T1.0  fc  hod  of  adjustment  I  have  described  .s  eminently 
ch.^:cteristic  of  the  Eussian  .ur.     The  asse-b^I  ^o- -^^ 
force  on  the  minority  resolutions  wi  h  which  the  latter  is 
au'ble  to  a-ree.     Everybody  must  make  concessions  for  the 
"e'e  al  good  and  the  peace  and  welfare  of  the  community 
The  mafority  are  too  generous  to  take  advantage  of  their 
^:S  stLngth.     ^le  .nir  is  not  a  master  but ^  o^ 
parent  equally  compassionate  to  all  its  children.     It  is  this 
rrty  of   our  villige  self-government  that   exp  ams    the 
i'^sen  e  of  humantty  which  forms  so  marked  a  feature  of 
our  rural  customs-the  mutual  help  in  field  labor   the  aid 
gWen  to  the  poor,  the  fatherless,  and  the  afflicted-which 
have  elicited  the  warm  admiration  of  every  observer  of  our 
village  life.    To  the  same  cause  must  be  ascribed  tlieun- 
Bwerving  loyalty  of  Kussian  peasants  to  their  mir.        What- 
ever the  mir  decides  is  ordained  of  God,"  says  a  popular 
nroverb      There  are  many  other  sayings  as,  for  instance  : 
-  Nobody  but  God  dare  Judge^  the  mir  ;  "  -  Who  is  greater 
than  the  mir  9    who  can  dispute  with  it  ?  "  "  The  mir  re- 
ceives no  bribes  ;  "  -  Where  the  mir's  hand  is,  there  my  head 
is  •  "  ''Although  last  in  the  mir,  a  man  is  always  one  ot  the 
flock  ;  but  once  separated  from  the  mir,  he  is  but  an  orphan  ; 
"  Every  member  of  the  mir  is  as  a  member  of  the  same 

family."  . 

An  indispensable  corollary  to  the  integrity  of  the  mir,  and, 
seein-  how  the  country  is  ruled,  one  of  its  most  surpnsmg 
peculiarities,  is  the  full  liberty  of  speech  and  debate  enjoyed 
by  our  rural  assemblies.  Indispensable,  for  how  could  busi- 
ness be  done  and  justice  enforced  if,  instead  of  speaking 
tlieir  minds  freelv,  members  of  a  commune  were  to  fear 
giving  offence  to  Peter  or  John,  and  resort  to  subterfuge 
and  falsehood  ?     Rough  frankness    of  manner  and  unre- 


THE   MIR.  6 

strained  liberty  of  speech  being  adopted  as  a  rule  and  sanc- 
tioned by  tradition,  they  are  not  abandoned  when  by  chance 
there  comes  under  discussion  some  subject  outside  the 
modest  sphere  of  peasant  life.  It  is  a  fact  admitted  by  all 
observers  that,  while  in  the  cities  words  implying  "  disre- 
spect of  existing  institutions  "  are  uttered  even  in  private 
with  bated  breath  and  heard  with  trembling,  the  peasants  in 
their  public  meetings  talk  as  they  list,  criticise  the  very  in- 
stitutions which  others  are  permitted  only  to  admire,  censure 
with  easy  impartiality  the  most  illustrious  members  of  the 
administrative  oligarchy,  treat  boldly  the  burning  agrarian 
question,  and  often  express  opinions  concei*ning  the  sacred 
imperial  presence  itself  which  would  make  the  hair  of  a  well- 
bred  townsman  stand  on  end. 

It  must  not,  however,  be  supposed  that  this  license  of  lan- 
guage bespeaks  an  insubordinate  temper  or  a  rebellious  spirit. 
It  is  nothing  more  than  an  inveterate  habit  begotten  of  long 
usage.  The  peasants  have  no  idea  that  in  speaking  their 
minds  they  are  breaking  the  law.  They  do  not  understand 
how  speech,  opinion — whatever  the  method  of  its  expression 
— can  be  considered  a  crime.  There  are  cases  on  record  of 
a  starosta  receiving  revolutionary  proclamations  by  post  and, 
in  the  innocence  of  his  heart,  reading  them  aloud  before  the 
village  assembly  as  something  curious  and  suggestive.  If  a 
revolutionary  propagandist  happens  to  enter  a  village  he  is 
invited  to  meet  the  assembly  and  read  or  tell  whatever  he 
may  think  likely  to  edify  the  community.  What  harm 
could  arise  from  so  natural  a  proceeding  ?  And  if  the  fact 
becomes  known  nothing  can  exceed  the  surprise  of  the  peas- 
ants when  told  by  the  gendarmes  that  they  have  committed 
a  heinous  offence.  So  great  is  their  ignorance  that  they 
believe  liberty  of  speech  to  be  a  right  inherent  in  every 
rational  being ! 

Such  are  the  main  features  of  our  village  self-government. 
Nothinsr  can  well  be  more  strikins:  than  the  contrast  between 


6  RUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

the  institutions  which  prevail  among  the  lower  orders  of 
Kussia  and  the  institutions  which  regulate  the  lives  of  its 
upper  classes.     The  former  are  essentially  republican  and 
democratic  ;  the  latter  arc  based  on  imperial  despotism,  and 
organized  on  the  strictest  principles  of  bureaucratic  control. 
This  contrast,  so  palpable  and  portentous,  having  endured 
for  centuries,  has  produced,  as  its  inevitable  consequence,  a 
phenomenon  of  great  importance  —  that  strongly  marked 
tendency  of  the   Kussian  people  to  hold  themselves  aloof 
from  the  State,  which  is  one  of  their  most  significant  char- 
acteristics.    On  the  one  hand,  the  peasant  saw  before  him 
his  mir,  the  embodiment  of  justice  and  brotherly  love  ;  on 
the  other,  official  Russia,  represented  by  the  tcMnovnihs  of 
the  Tzar,  his  magistrates,  gendarmes,  and  administrators- 
through  all  the  centuries  of  our  history  the  embodiment  of 
rapacity,  venality,  and  violence.     In  these  circumstances  it 
was  not  difficult  to  make  a  choice.     *'  It  is  better,"  says  the 
peasant  of  to-day,  "to  stand  guilty  before  the  mir  than  in- 
nocent before  the  judge."     And  his  forefathers  said,  ''Live 
and  enjoy  yourselves,  children,  while  Moscow  takes  no  notice 

of  you." 

From  the  very  dawn  of  our  national  history  the  Eussian 
peasant  has  shunned  intercourse  with  the  Russia  of  the 
tchinovnihs.  The  two  have  never  mingled,  a  fact  which  ex- 
plains why  the  political  evolutions  of  ages  have  made  so  lit- 
tle impression  on  the  habits  of  our  toiling  millions.  It  is  no 
exaggeration  to  say  that  the  lives  of  the  bulk  of  the  nation 
and  of  its  upper  classes  have  flowed  in  two  contiguous  yet 
separate  and  distinct  streams.  Tlie  common  folks  live  in 
their  liliputian  republics  like  snails  in  their  shells.  To  them 
official  Russia— the  world  of  tchinovnihs,  soldiers  and  police- 
men—is a  horde  of  foreign  conquerors,  who  from  time  to 
time  send  tlioir  agents  into  the  country  to  demand  the  trib- 
ute of  my  one  and  the  tribute  of  blood— taxes  for  the  Tzar's 
treasury  and  soldiers  for  his  army.     Yet  by  a  startling  ano- 


THE   MIE.  7 

maly — one  of  those  strange  contrasts  of  which,  as  a  celebra- 
ted geographer  has  said,  Eussia  is  full — these  rudimentary 
republics,  which  enjoy  so  large  a  measure  of  social  and  per- 
sonal freedom,  are  at  once  the  surest  foundations  and  the 
strongest  bulwarks  of  despotic  power. 

By  what  vagary  of  fortune  or  caprice  of  history,  it  may  be 
asked,  has  this  crying  anomaly  arisen  ?  How  comes  it  that 
institutions  in  so  flagrant  contradiction  with  the  whole  of 
our  political  regime  as  these  peasant  parliaments  should 
flourish  under  the  £egis  of  an  arbitrary  monarch  ? 

The  anomaly  is  only  in  appearance  ;  we  have  to  deal  nei- 
ther with  an  historical  riddle  nor  the  fortuitous  results  of 
incidental  combinations.  I  lay  so  much  stress  on  our  system 
of  popular  self-government  because  I  am  convinced  that  the 
form  which  it  takes  and  ideas  whereon  it  is  based  are 
more  in  conformity  with  the  political  aspirations  of  the  Eus- 
sian  people  than  the  autocratic  and  centralized  form  of  the 
existing  system.  If  there  be  aught  anomalous  in  our  polity, 
aught  imposed  on  the  nation  by  outward  and  accidental 
causes,  it  is  the  despotism  itself. 


1\ 


CHAPTER  II. 


THE  VETCHE. 


At  the  beginning  of  authentic  history  the  vast 
now    known    as    Russia    was    divided    into    a 
of  principalities,  varying  in  extent,  having  each  i 
and  several  more  or  less  important  towns  and  viilag( 
rulers,  however,  were  not  supreme  ;  they  reigned, 
did  not  govern,  all  legislative  and  executive  pow 
vested  in  the  popular  assembly.     This  assembly  t^ 
posed  of  free  citizens  without  distinction  of  rauk  or 
the  prince    being    no    more   than   a   public    fum 
elected   by  the  people  and    obedient   to   their  w 
traditional   custom  the  princes   were   chosen    am 
members  of  the  same  family  from  generation  to  go: 
or,  rather,  from  a  race  of  warriors  of  royal  blood,  all 
claimed  descent  from.Rnrik,  the  supposed  found( 
Russian  Empire.     The  principle  of  heredity  was  i 
ever,  regarded  as  an  immiitable  law  ;  the  vetclie  re 
no  such  right,  and  when  a  native  jirince  was  not  to 
of  his  i^eople,   they  changed  him  for  one   more 
liking.     The  prince  was  subject,  not  superior  to  hi 
the  subjection  of  the  people  being  an  idea  which 
come  into  vogue  until  several  centuries  later.    Tlie 
was  however  seldom  exercised.     Russian   history 
but  few  instances  of  the  deposition  of  a  native 
favor  of  a  foreign  ruler  ;  and  once  only,  when  the 
Galitia  deemed  a   change   expedient,  was  a  simpL 
raised   to    princely   rank.     But    the    custom    of 


i 


THE  VETCHE.  9 

21  the  same  family  was  really  no  restriction 
rty  of  election  ;  for  the  royal  stock  so  increased 
plied,  and  established  so  many  off-shoots  in 
)arts  of  the  country,  that  suitable  candidates 
s  forthcoming. 

storians  of  the  so-called  Muscovite  school,  out  of 
for  monarchic  principles,  have  pretended  to  dis- 
;erm  of  this  form  of  government  in  the  supposed 
jcession  and  right  of  birth  among  the  princes  of 
assia.  But  the  more  thorough  and  impartial 
of  the  new  school  prove  that  no  such  laws  existed, 
ch  rights  were  recognized — the  relations  between 
g  prince  and  the  people  being  in  every  case  regu- 
e  vetclie.  The  nearest  of  kin  to  the  ruler  had 
he  best  opportunities  of  making  himself  favorably 
id  in  ancient  Russia,  as  among  all  patriarchal 
je  commanded  popular  respect.  When  a  prince 
iS  banished,  the  ruler  generally  chosen  to  succeed 
3  eldest  brother,  who  was  probably  also  the  head  of 
,  or  of  that  branch  of  it  which  the  people  delighted 

If,  however,  the  brother  were  unpopular,  he 
lassed  over,  the  choice  in  that  event  falling  on  the 
late  prince  ;  or,  again,  if  the  people  so  willed  it, 
and  the  nephew  might  both  be  superseded  by  a 
)se  kinship  to  the  royal  line  was  attenuated  almost 
nition ;  for  mere  genealogy  counted  for  nothing 
tter,  and  early  Eussian  history  affords  abundant 
lat  the  one  immutable  privilege  which  regulated 
don  was  the  will  of  the  vetche. 
1  of  a  prince  was,  however,  only  the  first  step  in 
1.  The  next  proceeding  was  the  conclusion  of  a 
L — the  riada — between  the  new  ruler  and  the  city, 
ies  swore  faithfully  to  observe  the  contract,  and 
iB  riada  no  prince  could  consider  his  position  safe. 
,  in  fact,  was  the  constitutional  pact.     It  defined 

1* 


\\ 


10 


RUSSIA    UXDER  THE   TZAES. 


the  mutual  obligations  of  the  contracting  parti 
conditions  of  the  compact  were  subject  to  modifical 
only  in  diii'erent  principalities  and  from  time  to  tii 
between  one  prince  and  another.  The  leading  con( 
the  pact  were  nevertheless  almost  always  identic 
highest  function  of  the  prince  was  that  of  judge 
smaller  principalities  he  alone  filled  this  ofiice,  and 
of  the  contracts  it  was  specially  stipulated  that  tl 
should  act  in  person,  never  by  deputy,  the  peop] 
more  confidence  in  the  impartiality  and  indeper 
their  prince  than  in  any  of  his  men.  At  a  lat( 
when  princes,  influenced  by  other  ideas,  began  to  t: 
the  popular  rights,  it  was  specified  in  the  cons 
pacts  that  the  prince  should  only  act  as  judge  whe 
by  a  colleague  appointed  by  the  vetche. 

A  second  duty  of  the  prince,- hardly  less  imporl 
the  first,  was  to  defend  the  country  from  its  ener 
the  right  to  declare  war,  or  to  dispose  of  the  milita 
which  were  composed  of  all  citizens  able  to  bear  : 
vested  in  the  vetche.  The  prince,  generally  a  ma 
to  arms  from  his  youth  upwards,  was  appointed  to 
mand  of  the  army  only  after  the  declaration  of  wj 
the  more  important  principalities  he  shared  the 
bilities  of  command  with  a  special  officer  electe 
vetche.  The  prince  had  always  in  his  service  a  m( 
numerous  corps  of  volunteers — free  fighters — hal: 
native,  and  half  foreign,  denominated  drugina,  or 
of  the  prince."  And  so  they  were — literally  his 
meeting  every  day  in  the  same  hall,  sitting  at 
table,  the  companions  of  all  his  amusements,  his  a 
every  difficulty.  They  were,  moreover,  maintaine 
at  his  expense,  either  out  of  the  revenues  granted  i 
the  vetcha  or  his  own  private  resources.  If  he 
make  war,  the  vetche  was  at  liberty  to  refuse  bin 
operation  of  the  militia.     In  this  event,  he  could, 


THE  YETCHE. 


11 


it  at  his  own  risk  and  peril,  "with  the  help  of  his 
privilege  of  which  the  princes  of  that  age  often 
mselves  to  their  great  advantage.  The  drngtna, 
)rince's  personal  companions,  followed  him  every- 
he  left  his  j^rinoipality  to  rule  over  a  richer  and 
imunity,  they  accompanied  him  and  shared  his 
ne.  On  the  other  hand,  when  the  citizens  dis- 
unpopular  ruler,  the  druyina  were  expelled  at  the 


like  these  were  of  frequent  occurrence,  and  there 
princes  who  had  not  occupied  in  the  course  of 
half-a-dozen  thrones  (or  '''  dinner-tables,"  accord- 
suggestive  phrase  then  in  vogue).  A  change  of 
easily  effected.  When  a  prince  became  unpopular, 
lad  simply  to  meet  and  pronounce  the  sacramental 
'"e  salute  thee,  0  Prince  !"  whereupon  his  High- 
.  retire,  feeling  no  more  ill-will  for  his  former 
;s  than  if  he  were  a  candidate  for  parliamentary 
ten  at  an  election.  If  his  successor  did  not  prove 
iud  the  vetche  again  changed  their  minds  and  re- 
,  he  would  resume  his  former  position  with  the 
icrity.  It  sometimes  came  to  pass  that  a  prince 
,  dismissed  and  re-elected  three  or  four  times  in 
by  the  very  same  city. 

principalities  of  mediseval  Russia,  notwithstanding 
ihical  form  of  their  government,  were  in  reality  so 
)lics,  and  republics  they  are  called  by  the  best  of  our 
torians,  Mr.  Kostomaroff,  although  with  a  delicate 
on  for  the  susceptibilities  of  the  censorship,  he 
use  of  the  Latin  term,  substituting  for  it  the  Slav 

narodopravsivo.  The  princes  were  practically 
fortune,  with  a  following  of  volunteers  whom  the 
ook  into  their  service.  A  state  of  things  not 
ilar  prevailed  in  the  small  Italian  republics  of  the 
es,  the  sole  difference  being  the  Russian  condof- 


12 


RUSSIA   UNDER  THE   TZARS. 


'      *l 


t:l 


tieri  formed  a  separate  caste  and  were  all  descen 
the  same  royal  stock. 

Yet  this  difference  was  far  from  being  detrimen 
democratic  institutions  of  the  period,  for  the  mos 
fact  in  our  early  history  is  the  entire  absence  of 
dencies  toward  tyranny.  Earely,  indeed,  do  we  fine 
opposing  by  force  the  popular  will.  There  was  too 
lose  thereby  and  too  little  to  gain.  A  peo^Dle  hal 
living  in  a  country  so  thinly  inhabited  that  the 
no  value,  could  have  no  strong  local  ties.  Neith( 
prince's  love  of  country  count  for  much.  As  nc 
the  people  themselves,  he  and  his  drngina  cared  nc 
they  went  nor  where  they  settled.  Every  prince  foi 
and  the  drugina  for  their  master,  were  always  on 
out  for  promotion;  that  is  to  say,  for  a  larger  city  a 
l^ay.  It  was  therefore  against  a  prince's  own  interes 
the  will  of  the  vetclie,  for  such  a  stain  on  his  r 
would  greatly  impair  his  chances  of  advancemeni 
fault  of  anything  better,  moreover,  he  could  a^ 
some  petty  principality  ready  to  receive  him  ;  fo 
governed  by  a  simple ^o.safZMi/i:  always  added  to  its  d 
and  independence  by  exchanging  his  rule  for 
prince.  In  the  mean  time  he  might  look  forward 
fidence  to  something  better.  Princes  were  so  often  ( 
and  conflicts  with  the  vetche  were  so  common  th 
adventurer  with  a  good  character  who  kept  his 
bad  little  difficulty  in  obtaining  the  promotion  to 
aspired.  At  the  worst,  it  was  always  possible  for  a 
enterprise  to  win  honor  and  wealth  by  force  of  ar; 
expense  of  his  less  warlike  kinsmen.  In  these 
there  was  nothing  tyrannical  or  hostile  to  liberty, 
ular  prince  ran  little  risk  of  attack ;  for  would-1 
sors  knew  that  they  would  have  to  deal  not  witli 
gina  alone,  but  the  entire  military  force  of  the  coi 
the  other  hand,  when  the  people  had  no  particula 


THE   VETCH  E. 


13 


ice  it  was  a  matter  of  indifference  to  them  whether 
r  lost.  In  the  latter  event  they  were  quite  ready 
IS  ruler  the  prince  who  had  proved  himself  the  better 
e  vetche  elected  the  victor,  who  immediately  signed 
,  and,  after  taking  the  usual  oath,  entered  on  his 

precisely  as  if  he  had  acquired  his  position  in  the 
ray.  If  he  in  his  turn  made  himself  unpopular,  there 
pie  and  infallible  way  of  getting  rid  of  him.  The 
I  only  to  offer  the  throne  on  more  than  usually  favor- 
s  to  some  prince  of  military  capacity,  whereupon 
would  appear  on  the  scene  with  his  drugina,  and, 
he  citizens,  depose  his  rival  and  reign  in  his  stead. 
;]iu3  to  the  rivalry  among  members  of  the  priucely 

the  ancient  Russian  republics  chiefly  owed  the 
on  of  their  liberty  ;  and  the  more  important  cities, 

their  example  naturally  influenced  the  others, 
iys,  'hj  very  reason  of  their  extent,  and  the  eager- 
wliich  their  suffrages  were  sought,  turn  this  rivalry 
t  account. 

Nations  that  prevailed  between  the  prince  and  the 
plain  how,  in  older  Eussia,  freedom  so  complete 
cratic  was  maintained  without  effort  and  without 
trife.  All  other  republics,  either  of  antiquity  or 
ddle  Ages,  were,  so  to  speak,  limited  republics  or 
jnal  democracies,  the  will  of  the  people  being  always 
;ss  controlled  by  other  social  forces,  while  our  early 
^publics  were  absolute  and  unlimited  democracies, 
le  were  supreme  ;  every  citizen  had  an  equal  voice 
rernment  of  the  country,  and  neither  the  ruling 
)r  any  other  public  functionary,  had  a  vested 
I  his  place.  The  vetche  could  annul  all  or  any 
3rees.  Though  he  appointed  officers  to  assist  him 
ministration,  the  vetclie  controlled  his  choice  and 
niss  his  nominee.  They  were  not  jirotected  by 
3,  and  the  vetche  no   more  hesitated  to  punish  a 


14  ItUSSIA   UJSDER  THE   TZAllS. 

prince's  nominee  than  a  functionary  elected  by  themselves. 
Neither  the  prince  nor  any  other  servant  of  the  State  was  ap- 
pointed for  a  fixed  term.  All  held  their  places  at  the  pleasure 
of  the  people.  The  bishops  alone  were  nominally  elected 
for  life,  but  even  they  were  sometimes  summarily  dismissed 
by  the  vetclie.  Thus  the  vetche  was  the  sovereign  power 
which  regulated  all  the  affairs  of  the  country.  There  was  no 
divided  authority  ;  the  vetche  spoke  the  voice  and  expressed 
the  will  of  the  people.  In  a  word,  the  republics  of  ancient 
Eussiawere  primitive  states,  elementary  in  their  institutions, 
and  purely  democratic  in  their  government. 


CHAPTER  III. 

A  RUSSIAN  REPUBLIC. 

If  from  the  fragmentary  notices  dispersed  throughout  our 
old  chronicles  we  endeavor  to  draw  a  living  picture  of  these 
same  vetches,  the  primitive  and  simple  character  of  our 
ancient  republican  regime  will  be  rendered  more  visible  and 
striking. 

On  the  banks  of  tlie  river  Volchow,  and  not  far  from  Lake 
Ilmen,  lies  the  famous  city  of  ISTovgorod — now  only  a  small 
provincial  **  chief-town  "  with  some  18,000  inhabitants,  but 
centuries  ago  one  of  the  greatest  of  European  cities,  worthy, 
by  its  power  and  riches,  of  being  called  the  Northern  Venice. 
In  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries  Novgorod  was  the 
capital  of  avast  republic,  which  included  the  northern  half 
of  modern  Russia,  stretching  as  far  as  the  Ural  mountains, 
and  containing  large  towns  and  important  cities.  Favored 
by  its  splendid  position  on  the  great  highway  which  united 
Mediteval  Europe  with  the  Levant,  Novgorod  the  Great 
waxed  rich  and  powerful  on  the  commerce  and  industry  of 
her  sons,  and  for  centuries  successfully  defended  her  liberties 
against  the  ever-growing  power  of  the  Muscovite  Tzars.  It 
was  not  until  the  sixteenth  century  that  the  resistance  of 
the  heroic  republic  was  finally  overcome.  None  of  our  old 
republics  ever  attained  to  the  same  power  and  S2)lendor 
as  Novgorod  the  Great,  and  noae  has  left  us  records  so 
rich  of  a  glorious  past.  In  these  priceless  documents 
we  find  the  best  material  for  the  study  of  our  early  institu- 
tions. 


16  RUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

On  one  of  the  squares  of  the  now  depopulated  city,  the 
stranger  is  shown  the  place  where,  at  the  stroke  of  the  great 
bcllAvhich  Avas  there  suspended,  the  sovereign  people  were 
wont  to  meet.  Its  sacred  rope  was  free  to  all,  every  citizen 
being  competent  to  summon  the  vetche  for  deliberation  on 
any  subject  affecting  the  welfare  of  individuals  or  the  State. 
The  people  were  masters,  even,  as  we  have  seen,  despots, 
sometimes  violent  and  hasty,  but  always  noble  and  generous, 
like  legendary  Oriental  kings,  fathers  of  their  country,  ever 
accessible  to  'the  humblest  of  their  subjects,  ever  ready  to 
redress  their  wrongs,  and  prompt  to  punish  the  trespasses 
of  the  great  and  powerful.  If  none  dared  disturb  for  trivial 
or  inadequate  cause  the  repose  of  the  sleeping  lion,  none,  on 
the  other  hand,  could  hinder  the  humblest  burgher  from 
convoking  the  people  and  making  complaint  of  any  injustice 
committed  against  him  ;  and  forcing  the  aggressor— who- 
soever he  might  be,  whether  ^o.safZrn'^  (lord  mayor)  or  prince 
— to  appear  and  answer  to  the  charge. 

The  rules  touching  the  convocation  of  the  vetche  were  few 
and  simple,  its  meetings  being  marked  by  an  almost  entire 
absence  of  formality.  Supreme  power  was  vested  in  the 
entire  body  of  the  people,  and  wherever  and  whenever  they 
met  their  will  was  law.  There  are  instances  on  record  of 
the  militia  of  Novgorod  while  encamped  in  the  face  of  the 
enemy  constituting  themselves  into  a  vetche,  and  adopting 
resolutions  which  were  held  as  binding  as  if  they  had  been 
passed  by  the  assembled  citizens  in  the  great  square  of  the 
capital. 

But  that  which  differentiates  our  ancient  vetche,  as  well 
as  our  mirs,  from  all  similar  assemblies,  is  the  absence  of  any 
system  of  voting.  In  every  other  republic,  however  free  or 
democratic  it  might  be— at  Sparta  and  Eome,  as  well  as  at 
Athens  and  Florence — ^voting  in  one  shape  or  another 
existed,  and  the  jirinciple  that  the  minority  should  conform 
to  the  rule  of  the  majority  was  the  basis  of  all  theirpolitical 


A  RUSSIAK  REPUBLIC.  17 

procedure.  In  the  Slav  nature  there  seems  something 
antagonistic  to  this  principle.  I  say  Slav,  and  not  Russian, 
because  among  all  the  peoples  of  that  race,  possessed  of 
genuinely  free  institutions,  we  invariably  find  that  the 
principle  of  unanimous  decision  is  the  only  principle  which 
the  popular  conscience  is  able  to  accept.  In  Poland  these 
principles  were  embodied  in  an  unalterable  law,  than  which 
nothing  could  be  more  fatal  and  absurd.  In  the  national 
Polish  diets,  if  one  man — who  might  be  bribed  by  a  foreign 
enemy — shouted  his  liberum  veto,  it  suflBced  to  annul  the 
decision  of  the  entire  assembly.  In  the  Eutheuian  republics 
— those  of  the  Ukrauian  Cossacks  on  either  side  of  the 
Dnieper,  and  in  warlike  Zaporogia — the  principle  of  unanim- 
ity equally  prevailed,  and  the  system  of  legislation  by  vote 
was  never  practised.  There  were,  however,  occasions  in 
which  the  more  numerous,  or,  at  any  rate,  the  stronger 
party  found  an  effective  v/ay  of  overcoming  opposition. 
When  some  burning  question  arose — for  instance,  the  choice 
of  a  military  chief  or  higher  magistrate — and  none  of  the 
disputants  would  yield,  they  generally  came  to  blows,  and  so 
soon  as  the  physically  weaker  party  had  been  sufficiently 
belabored,  they  abandoned  their  opposition,  the  desired 
unanimity  was  attained,  and  the  candidates  were  elected  by 
acclamation.  These  disjoutes  were  sometimes  settled  in  a 
manner  still  more  summary — with  knife  instead  of  fist.  The 
vetche  of  old  Russia,  especially  those  of  IsTovgorod  the  Great, 
as  to  which  we  have  more  complete  information  than  any 
other,  seem  to  have  been  also  at  times  very  turbulent.  The 
chroniclers  tell  of  frequent  disputes,  some  of  which  ended  in 
sanguinary  struggles  and  loss  of  life.  But  these  cases  were 
evidently  exceptional.  The  republic  could  not  have  existed, 
much  less  prospered  and  grown  in  power,  if  civil  war  had 
been  chronic  in  its  capital.  As  a  rule,  moderate  counsels 
prevailed,  and  differences  were  pacifically  settled  by  per- 
suasion and  mutual  concession.     The  mildness  and  docility 


18  ErSSIA   UKDER  THE  TZAES. 

of  the  Slav  character  rendered  possible  the  application,  on  a 
large  scale,  of  a  principle  based  on  an  undeniably  generous 
sentiment — respect  for  the  rights  of  minorities,  a  sentiment 
declared  by  an  eminent  English  political  writer  to  be  the 
foundation  of  true  liberty. 


CHAPTER  lY. 

SURVIVAL  OF  SELF-GOVER]S'ME]S"T. 

We  find,  then,  in  the  governing  bodies  of  our  ancient 
states  the  same  striking  peculiarity  which  distinguishes  the 
humble  assemblies  of  our  obscure  Tillages— the  legislation 
by  unanimous  decision. 

Nor,  as  reference  to  our  first  chapter  will  show,  is  this  the 
only  feature  common  to  the  vetclie  and  the  mir.  The  resem- 
blance extends  to  details  ;  their  identity  is  almost  complete,  a 
surprising  and  remarkable  fact  when  it  is  considered  how 
different  are  the  circumstances  of  these  two  institutions,  and 
by  how  long  an  interval  of  time  they  are  separated— the  one 
perished  centuries  ago,  the  other  still  survives.  In  its 
methods  of  procedure,  as  well  as  by  the  primitive  variety  of 
its  functions  and  the  disorderly  character  of  its  proceedings, 
the  obsolete  vetcTie  is  neither  more  nor  less  than  the  modern 
commune  assembly,  and,  though  on  a  m^^ch  larger  scale, 
without  any  essential  difference  in  its  organization.  If  there 
be  any  difference  it  is  certainly  less  than  that  which  exists 
between  the  domestic  cat  and  the  Bensral  tiger,  or  between 
the  timid  lizard,  which  hides  itself  at  the  first  alarm  in  the 
nearest  hole,  and  the  ferocious  saurian  which  haunts  the 
rivers  of  the  Spanish  Main — in  spite  of  their  seeming  dis- 
similarity both  members  of  the  same  family. 

The  existence  of  a  close  kinship  between  the  mir  and  the 
vetche  is  beyond  doubt,  and  it  would  not  be  difficult  to  trace 
the  noble  genealogy  of  the  descendants  of  our  ancient  system 
of  self-government.  To  meet,  discuss,  provide  for  their 
own  wants,  and  manage  their  own  business  are  the  privi- 


20  RUSSIA   UXDEK  THE  TZARS. 

leges  of  freemen,  and  the  vetche  was  the  sole  form  of  govern- 
ment which  it  entered  the  mind  of  the  mediseval  Slav  to 
conceive.  Even  our  "skimmers  of  the  sea,"  the  valiant 
ushconiniki  of  Novgorod,  half  warriors,  half  shipmen, 
travelling  in  companies  like  mediseval  masons  or  modern 
artels  of  workmen,  carried  to  unknown  lands,  together  with 
their  wares,  the  vetche  and  all  its  peculiarities.  Besides  the 
great  vetche,  whose  doings  are  recorded  in  our  ancient 
chronicles,  there  were  the  smaller  vetche  of  inferior  towns, 
and  the  humble  assembly  of  the  innumerable  villages  that 
were  scattered  over  the  face  of  the  laud.  All  these  vetche, 
though  differing  as  to  size,  were  similarly  constituted. 

But  in  the  struggle  for  existence,  a  struggle  no  less  real  in 
the  realm  of  politics  than  the  world  of  zoology,  the  greater 
organisms — the  vetche  of  the  cities — perished,  like  those 
antediluvian  monsters  which,  notwithstanding  their  size, 
were  either  unable  to  prevail  against  their  enemies,  or  sur- 
vive unfavorable  climatic  changes.  The  smaller  vetche 
shared  the  fate  of  their  progenitors,  while  the  village  vetche, 
rendered  invulnerable  by  their  very  insignificance,  still  live 
and  flourish.  We  have  thus  before  us  a  curious,  if  not  an 
unique,  example  of  historic  paleontology,  the  conversation 
for  centuries  of  an  ancient  institution  iinder  a  political 
regime  essentially  different  and  apparently  hostile. 

How,  it  may  be  asked,  has  this  anomaly  come  to  pass  ? 
Very  simply  ;  in  the  same  way  that  small  fish  escape 
through  the  meshes  of  a  large  net.  All  government  is  based 
on  the  idea  of  taxation.  The  body  politic — the  State — can 
no  more  exist  without  money  than  the  human  body  can 
exist  without  taking  nourishment.  But  in  a  wild,  unculti- 
vated country  of  vast  extent  and  destitute  of  roads,  with  a 
population  always  on  the  move,  force  fails,  and,  except  in 
rare  cases,  individual  members  of  the  community  can 
neither  be  coerced  nor  controlled.  The  State  may  pass 
laws  and  demand   taxes,  but  it  can   neither,  by  ordinary 


SURVIVAL  OF  SELF-GOVEEJfilENT.  21 

means,  enforce  obedience  to  the  one  nor  payment  of  the 
other.  For  these  reasons  Eassian  governments  have  been 
compelled  to  recognize  the  rural  communes,  to  confirm  their 
privileges,  treat  with  them  as  independent  corporations,  and 
allow  them  to  manage  their  own  affairs.  The  land  register 
was  kept  by  the  communes,  and  not  by  individual  propri- 
etors ;  the  taxes  were  based  on  the  register,  and  paid  by  the 
village  in  its  corporate  capacity.  If  a  villager  went  away 
and  ceased  therefore  to  contribute  his  quota  to  the  common 
fund,  the  GoTernment  made  no  difference,  always  exacting 
the  same  amount  until  a  new  register  was  prepared,  which 
might  not  be  for  years. 

Such  is  the  fiscal  system  which  has  been  followed  by  the 
successive  rulers  of  Eussia — princes,  khans,  tzars,  and  em- 
perors. No  other  system  was  possible.  Even  serfage  did 
not  interfere  with  rural  self-government,  and  the  great 
seigneurs,  who  owned  both  the  land  and  bodies  of  the  tillers 
of  the  soil,  never  attempted  to  restrict  the  autonomy  of  the 
commune.  None  of  the  political  troubles  which  have  swept 
over  the  country  have  affected  the  mir  any  more  than  the 
fierce  winds  which  sweep  over  the  ocean  disturb  the  eternal 
calm  of  its  lowmost  depths.  The  mir  can  be  touched  only 
by  the  new  methods  of  the  present  economic  regime,  a  sub- 
ject on  which  I  cannot  dwell  in  the  present  work. 

The  survival  of  self-government  among  the  lower  orders 
is  a  highly  significant  fact,  proving  as  it  does  the  political 
as  well  as  the  economic  vitality  of  our  communes,  and  ac- 
counting for  the  re-appearance  of  our  old  republican  institu- 
tions every  time  the  Eussian  people  are  free  to  manage  their 
own  affairs.     Of  this  there  are  many  instances. 

In  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries,  the  time  of  the 
Muscovite  autocracy's  greatest  development,  tens  of  thousands 
of  outlaws,  fleeing  from  unbearable  oppression,  found  a 
refuge  on  the  steppes  of  Yaik  (now  Oural),  the  Don  and  the 
Dnieper.     These  fugitives,  who  called  themselves  Cossacks, 


23  RUSSIA   UNDER  THE   TZARS. 

founded  a  number  of  little  military  republics,  identical  in  al- 
most every  respect  with  the  purely  Russian  republics  of 
which  Novgorod  was  the  most  illustrious  example.  The 
chief  difference  consisted  in  the  fact  that  the  Cossack  com- 
munities, having  no  princely  families  to  supply  them  with 
rulers,  elected  military  chiefs,  who,  under  the  titles  of  ata- 
man, hetman,  koshevoi,  performed  functions  similar  to  those 
performed  by  the  Rurikovetchi  princes  of  ancient  Russia. 
Even  in  our  own  time,  whenever,  as  occasionally  happens 
(for  instance  in  1830  at  Staraia  Roussa  and  other  districts, 
and  in  1856  in  the  province  of  Orel),  a  rising  is  temporarily 
successful,  the  insurgents  never  place  themselves  under  the 
authority  of  a  chief,  but  set  up  immediately  a  republic,  sui 
generis,  and  supreme  power  is  vested  in  a  popular  assembly. 

Returning  to  our  first  theme,  and  with  all  the  facts  before 
us,  we  may  affirm  with  full  confidence  that  those  who,  judg- 
ing solely  by  appearances,  say  that  the  Russian  people  have 
an  instinctive  j^reference  for  despotic  government,  make  a 
great  mistake.  On  the  contrary,  all  their  habits  and  tenden- 
cies, as  revealed  in  their  history,  show  them  to  possess  a 
decided  bent  for  freedom  and  strong  aptitudes  for  self-gov- 
ernment, wherein  the  vast  majority  of  the  nation  are  trained 
from  childhood,  and  which,  whenever  they  have  the  oppor- 
tunity, Russian  jDcople  spontaneously  practise. 

But  what  is,  then,  their  monarchism,  their  devotion  to 
the  Tzar  of  which  so  much  is  said  ?  The  monarchism  of 
Russian  peasants  is  a  conception  which  has  exclusive  reference 
to  the  State  in  its  entirety,  the  whole  body  politic.  If  the 
peasants  were  left  to  themselves  and  free  to  realize  their 
strange  ideals,  they  would  tell  the  "White  Tzar  to  remain  on 
the  throne,  but  they  would  send  to  the  right  about,  and 
probably  massacre,  every  governor,  policeman,  and  tchinov- 
nik  in  the  land,  and  set  up  a  series  of  democratic  republics. 
For  the  peasants  in  their  ignorance  do  not  understand  how 
Russia  at  large  can  govern  herself  ;  they  do  not  see  that  the 


SUKVIVAL   OF   SELF-GOVEKKMENT.  23 

bureaucracy  which  they  hate  and  the  Tzar  whom  they  love 
are  essential  parts  of  the  same  system,  and  that  to  destroy 
the  former  and  leave  the  latter  would  be  like  cutting  off  the 
hands  and  feet,  and  leaving  the  head  and  trunk.  This  is  a, 
misconception  arising  from  simple  ignorance,  a  misconcep- 
tion which,  as  instruction  spreads  among  the  people,  will  give 
place  to  truer  ideas. 

Yet  it  was  not  always  so.  A  misconception  can  neither 
endure  through  five  centuries  nor  be  created  by  imagination. 
In  the  history  and  social  conditions  of  the  country  must  be 
sought  the  causes  to  which  the  autocracy  owes  its  being, 
which  maintain  it,  and  form  the  historic  justification  of  its 
existence  ;  for  there  was  a  time  when  autocracy  was  the  pop- 
ular ideal  and  the  centre  of  all  the  aspiration  of  the  nation. 


CHAPTEE  V. 

THE  MAKIKG   OF  THE   DESPOTISM. 

By  "what  process  was  the  ultra-democratic  regime  that 
prevailed  in  Eussia  during  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centu- 
ries transmuted  in  the  course  of  three  or  four  hundred  years 
into  a  despotism  of  which  it  may  well  be  affirmed,  without 
historic  exaggeration,  the  world  has  never  seen  the  like  ? 

To  answer  this  question  in  detail  it  would  be  necessary  to 
give  a  complete  history  of  the  development  of  the  Muscovite 
monarchy.  But  so  great  an  undertaking  is  beyond  the  scope 
of  my  present  work  ;  I  must  content  myself  with  such  brief 
sketch  as  will  suffice  to  show  that  this  unfortunate  result 
is  no  fortuitous  or  accidental  event,  and  that  my  descrip- 
tion of  our  ancient  liberties  is  in  no  respect  overdrawn. 

The  organization  of  the  central  power  in  the  oldest  and 
most  developed  of  our  states — Novgorod  the  Great — was,  as 
we  have  seen,  of  an  extreme  primitiveness  and  simplicity. 
Not  alone  may  the  entire  controlling  authority — that  is  to 
say  the  vetche — but  the  entire  state  may  be  likened  to  one  of 
those  plants  which,  notwithstanding  their  size,  are  composed 
of  a  single  cell.  The  dominions  of  the  Novgorod  greatly 
surpassed  those,  of  the  Queen  of  the  Adriatic.  They  were 
always  growing  by  the  accretion  of  colonies,  either  conquered 
by  arms  or  acquired  by  treaty  from  the  wild  aboriginals.  Some 
of  these  colonies,  waxing  in  wealth  and  population,  became 
in  their  turn  powerful  communities.  Hence  the  establish- 
ment of  a  perfect  understanding — a  modus  vive?idi — between 
them  and  the  mother  city  was  one  of  the  most  pressing  social 
needs  of  the  time,  and  essential  to  the  integrity  of  the  State. 


THE  MAKIKG  OF  THE   DESPOTISM.  25 

But  what  did  ancient  Russia  to  meet  this  necessity?  Nothing 
at  all.  The  colonies  were  regarded  as  integral  parts  of  the 
metropolis,  and  the  colonists  were  free  to  come  to  the  capi- 
tal whenever  it  pleased  them  and  join  in  the  deliberations 
of  the  vetche.  When  matters  of  importance  were  about  to 
be  discussed  they  were  informed  betimes  and  invited  to  attend. 
But  if  the  colonists  came  not  the  Assembly  decided  all  tho 
same,  giving  no  more  heed  to  their  special  interests  than 
to  those  of  any  other  citizens  who  were  hindered  by  un- 
avoidable causes  from  being  present.  A  colony,  in  fact, 
was  looked  upon  as  being  in  some  sort  a  quarter  of  the  city. 
It  was  even  denominated  pregorod,  a  word  which,  literally 
rendered,  signifies  a  ward  of  the  capital,  albeit  these  curious 
wards  might  be  distant  therefrom  a  month's  journey.  True, 
each  colony  had  a  vdclia  of  its  own  which  regulated  all  local 
affairs ;  on  the  other  hand,  general  legislation  was  the  jDre- 
rogative  of  the  metropolitan  Assembly,  which,  as  the  sujDreme 
authority,  the  colonists  were  compelled  in  the  last  resort  to 
obey.  The  issues  of  peace  or  war  were  also  in  the  hands  of 
the  greater  vetche.  ''  That  which  the  elder  ordered  the 
younger  had  to  do,"  says  the  old  chronicler.  So  long  as 
they  were  young  and  struggling  the  colonists  submitted. 
But  so  soon  as  they  felt  themselves  strong  enough  to  walk 
alone  they  dismissed  the  governor  appointed  by  the  metro- 
politan vetche,  chose  in  his  stead  a  prince  with  a  good 
drugina,  and  declared  themselves  independent.  Sometimes 
the  separation  was  effected  peacefully.  Generally,  however, 
the  old  vetche  and  the  new  State  came  to  blows,  and  if  the 
rebellious  colony  succeeded  in  maintaining  its  pretensions 
by  force  of  arms,  its  independence  was  definitively  acknowl- 
edged. It  rose  at  once  from  the  position  of  a  ward  to  that 
of  a  "younger  brother,"  and  the  two  communities  entered 
into  an  alliance,  and  swore  eternal  friendship — proceedings 
which  of  course  did  not  in  the  least  hinder  them  from  falling 

out  on  the  first  occasion.     No  lessons  of  wisdom  were  drawn 
2 


26  EUSSIA    UXDER  THE  TZAES. 

from  these  frequent  scissions,  and  when  in  course  of  time 
the  severed  colonies  founded  other  colonies,  the  process  of 
disintegration  went  on  as  before.  Thus  in  older  Russia  the 
interior  development  of  the  country  resulted,  as  by  the 
ojDcration  of  a  natural  law,  in  the  creation  of  an  ever  grow- 
ing number  of  small  independent  states,  which  though 
republics  in  fact  were  principalities  in  form.  The  multi- 
plication of  royal  families  also  contributed  in  no  small 
degree  to  this  outcome ;  for  ambitious  young  princes,  eager 
for  power  and  place,  were  always  at  hand  ready  to  encourage 
separation  and  stir  up  revolt. 

Something  like  this,  although  due  to  an  altogether  differ- 
ent cause,  came  to  pass  in  some  other  countries.  The  issue, 
however,  in  both  cases  was  the  same — the  creation  of  auto- 
cracy. Like  the  feudal  barons,  these  independent  princes 
warred  incessantly  among  themselves.  Sometimes  they 
were  helped  by  the  citizens.  But  when  the  citizens  were 
indifferent  or  hostile  they  trusted  to  their  own  drngina  and 
contingents  of  mercenary  nomads,  whom  they  enlisted  in 
their  service.  At  last  the  country,  devastated  by  these  eternal 
feuds,  demanded  peace  at  any  price.  The  simplest  and 
easiest,  and  in  existing  circumstances  the  only  way  of  reach- 
ing this  end,  was  the  substitution  of  a  single  prince  for  the 
multitude  of  princelings.  For  it  is  only  by  long  training, 
intellectual  growth,  and  material  development  that  com- 
munities become  habituated  to  the  complex  and  costly 
mechanism  of  representative  institutions,  the  only  means 
hitherto  discovered  whereby  union  and  independence  can  be 
reconciled  with  national  security  and  personal  freedom.  Old 
Russia,  which  had  not  even  learned  the  alphabet  of  this 
difficult  lesson,  was  constrained  like  other  peoples  to  under- 
go the  hard  apprenticeship  of  despotic  government.  The 
social  and  political  condition  of  the  country,  moreover, 
rendered  the  establishment  of  autocratic  rule  both  easier  and 
more  urgent  than  elsewhere— more  urgent  because  the  Russia 


THE   MAKING  OF  THE  DESPOTISM.  27 

of  that  day  had  not  alone  to  contend  with  internal  disorders, 
but  to  make  head  against  incessant  invasion.  These  inva- 
sions, dangerous  and  vexatious  at  the  beginning  of  Eussian 
history  iu  the  tenth  and.  eleventh  centuries,  became  in  the 
twelfth  century,  when  feeble  nomads  were  succeeded  by  fierce 
Tartars,  terrible  and  almost  fatal ;  and  only  after  a  struggle 
of  five  hundred  years  was  the  country  finally  freed  from 
their  yoke  and  relieved  from  their  aggressions. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  social  condition  of  Russia  offered 
fewer  obstacles  to  union  under  a  single  sovereign  than  most 
other  countries.  The  ordinary  process  of  consolidation  was 
through  conquest  and  the  gradual  annexation  of  neighbor- 
ing states,  a  process  which,  depending  as  it  did  on  the  un- 
certain fortunes  of  war,  was  necessarily  slow  and  difficult. 
Small  independent  states  generally  defended  themselves 
vigorously  and  long.  The  powerful  local  aristocracy,  dread- 
ing to  sink  into  the  position  of  a  provincial  nobility,  threw 
in  their  lot  with  the  princes  ;  and  the  people,  oblivious  to 
their  own  interests,  often  joined  hands  with  the  great  against 
those  who  were  wrongly  stigmatized  as  foreign  enemies. 
The  segregation  of  their  lives  gave  rise  to  petty  local  differ- 
ences, which,  together  with  the  ignorance  natural  to  the 
age,  produced  in  turn  a  crop  of  hatred  and  jealousy.  It  was 
only  with  the  help  of  the  industrial  classes  that  the  mon- 
archies of  Central  Europe  were  enabled  to  overcome  these 
hostile  influences  and  complete  the  process  of  unification  by 
the  consolidation  of  their  kingdoms. 

In  Russia  the  process  of  unification  took  a  different  course. 
If  there  were  no  burghers — no  trading  classes — there  were, 
on  the  other  hand,  fewer  obstacles.  The  agricultural  popu- 
lation was  only  in  part  sedentary.  The  quantity  of  unoccu- 
pied land  was  so  vast,  the  art  of  husbandry  so  backward, 
that  the  people  were  half  nomad.  After  burning  the  forests, 
they  raised  in  the  rudest  fashion  such  crops  as  they  needed. 
When  the  soil  was  exhausted,  or  they  wanted  a  change. 


23  KUSSIA   UifDEE  THE  TZARS. 

they    moved    elsewhere;     and    this    process    they    were 
continually  repeating.     A  peasant  was  always  willing  to  ex- 
change fields  with  a  neighbor,  or  even  migrate  to  another 
province.     The  agricultural  classes  roamed  at  will  over  the 
vast  Russian  plains  in  search  of  a  more  fruitful  soil  or  less 
onerous  conditions.     Entire  villages  disappeared  from  one 
place  to  re-appear  in  another.     The  political  condition  of 
the  time,  as  was  natural,  determined  the  general  direction 
of  this  great  human  flood.     After  the  irruption  of  the  Tar- 
tars it  flowed  chiefly  towards  the  north-west,   where   the 
principalities  of  Vladimir,  Tver  and  Moscow  had  constitu- 
ted themselves  into  a  state,  and  formed  a  settled  govern- 
ment.    But  in  addition  to  the  main  stream   there   were 
always  minor  currents  flowing  between   provinces   of  the 
same  region.     This  coming  and  going,  this  ebb  and  flow  of 
peoples,  by  welding  the  population  into  a  homogeneous  whole, 
greatly  facilitated  the  unification  of  the  country.   The  peas- 
ants of  Tver,  Kazan,  and  Viatka  came  in  time  to  difi!er  in 
nothing  from  the   peasants  of  Nijni  Isovgorod.     Such  a 
country  as  this  afforded  little  room  for  the  development  of 
those   peculiar  prejudices  and  strong  local  ties  by  which 
populations  that  remain  long  in  the  same  place  and  become 
rooted  in  the  soil  are  invariably  characterized.     As  for  the 
higher  or  warrior  class,  which  was  at  once  the  head  and 
nerve  force  of  the  country,  they  were  even  more  vagabond 
and  had  fewer  local  ties  than  the  peasants  ;  for  the  ancient 
drugina,  though  they  received  grants  of  land  "for  food," 
were  attached  to  the  person  of  the  prince,  and  not  to  the 
soil.     Yet  they  were  always  volunteers,  free  fighters,  who 
had  the  same  right  to  change  their  prince  as  a  workman  to 
change  his  master  ;  a  right  which  they  largely  used,  never 
scrupling  to  abandon  a  chief  whose  star  had  begun  to  wane 
for  one  whom  fortune  was  beginning  to  favor.     In  these  cir- 
cumstances an  annexation  was  generally  little  more  than 
taking  possession  of  a  territory  which,  by  reason  of  the  de- 


THE  MAKING   OF  THE   DESPOTISM.  29 

fection  of  its  military  defenders,  and  the  migration  of  great 
part  of  the  population  to  the  principality  of  a  more  power- 
ful ruler,  could  offer  no  resistance  to  an  invader.  It  often 
befell,  moreover,  that  a  prince  whose  independence  was  en- 
dangered would  anticipate  his  fate,  and  avoid  the  conse- 
quences of  defeat  in  the  field  by  proceeding  to  Moscow,  and 
voluntarily  surrendering  his  dominions  to  his  former  rival, 
securing,  as  the  reward  of  his  homage  and  submission,  riches, 
honor,  and  the  title  of  boyar.  At  the  court  of  Moscow  the 
families  of  boyar  princes,  all  descended  from  once  indepen- 
dent sovereigns,  may  still  be  counted  by  the  dozen. 

Thus,  as  I  have  observed,  the  methodby  which  unification 
was  accomplished  in  Russia  differed  from  that  by  which  it 
was  accomplished  in  most  other  countries.  It  may  be  con- 
sidered as  partaking  in  equal  measure  of  the  gathering  of 
nomad  tribes  arouud  the  standard  of  a  valiant  and  success- 
ful chieftain,  and  the  process  peculiar  to  countries  whose 
populations  are  completely  sedentary.  This  explains  at  once 
the  extreme  facility  with  which  Muscovite  unification  was 
accomplished  and  the  origin  of  the  despotism  that  followed 
in  its  wake. 

"While  the  political  condition  of  Russia  and  the  exigencies 
of  a  life  and  death  struggle  extending  over  four  centuries,  a 
struggle  with  enemies  of  an  alien  race  and  hostile  religion, 
converted  the  chief  of  the  state  into  a  permanent  military 
dictator — so  loyally  supported  by  his  people  that  to  oppose 
him  was  regarded  as  a  crime — the  social  condition  of  the 
country  lent  to  the  despotism  so  terrible  a  conservative  force 
that,  long  after  its  energies  had  begun  to  decline,  and  the 
causes  that  brought  it  into  being,  which  causes,  to  a  certain 
point,  Justified  its  existence,  ceased  to  prevail,  the  Tzars 
were  enabled  to  retain  all  their  autocratic  powers  and  con- 
tinue their  encroachments  on  the  rights  of  their  subjects. 

The  ideal  Muscovite  state  was  an  army,  a  colossal  clru- 
gina  transformed  into  a  military  caste,  and  disseminated  in 


30  EUSSIA   UXDER  THE  TZAES. 

quarters  oyer  all  the  vast  area  of  the  empire.  Diyided  by 
immense  distances,  this  class  was  divided  still  further  by  the 
rivalry  which  prevailed  between  one  clan  or  section  and 
another,  and  among  the  members  of  the  clans  themselves. 
It  had  nothing  in  common  with  feudal  aristocracies,  their 
hierarchies  of  nobles,  and  their  dependent  vassals.  JSTeither 
did  it  resemble  the  class  of  Polish  magnates,  who  maintained 
at  their  own  charge  thousands  of  poor  knights  trained  to 
arms,  and  attached  to  their  patron  by  a  community  of  origin 
and  interest.  The  country  was  too  poor  to  enable  the  boy- 
ars  to  indulge  in  costly  luxuries,  and  too  expensive  to  per- 
mit the  smaller  nobility  to  jaock  to  the  palaces  of  wealthy 
potentates.  The  Tzar,  moreover,  could  always  recompense 
their  services  by  grants  of  land,  and  confirm  their  allegiance 
by  hopes  of  advancement.  All  the  immense  material  forces 
of  the  State  were  thus  represented  by  a  vast  horde,  depend- 
ent, both  individually  and  in  mass,  directly  on  the  Tzar,  and 
living  only  by  his  favor — a  horde  of  whom  the  inferior 
ranks  were  always  ready  to  crush  at  a  sign  any  show  of  re^ 
sistance  on  the  part  of  their  superiors  to  their  master's 
behests. 

And  all  this  in  a  country  where  two  centuries  and  a  half 
of  slavery  had  destroyed  among  the  upper  classes  every  senti- 
ment of  honor  and  dignity,  and  among  tlie  lower  even  the 
memory  of  their  ancient  liberties,  habituating  them  to  bow 
in  humble  submission  to  brute  force,  whereas  the  turbulent 
and  irascible  Russian  of  the  olden  time  was  always  prompt 
to  resent  injustice  with  rebellion. 

True,  the  same  natural  conditions  which  hindered  the 
formation  of  permanent  social  ties  prevented  the  central 
government  from  making  its  authority  effectively  felt  over 
the  whole  extent  of  its  wide-stretching  dominions.  The 
greater  part  of  the  nation,  even  the  greater  part  of  the  mili- 
tary caste,  felt  only  fortuitously  the  power  of  the  Tzar, 
All  the  more  terrible  was  the  position  of  those  whom  he 


THE   MAKING   OF  THE   DESPOTISM.  31 

had  within  his  grasp,  for  the  autocracy  had  developed  into 
a  despotism  ■whicli  was  distinguished  less  by  the  greatness 
of  its  power  than  by  the  boundlessness  of  its  absolutism. 
What  resistance    could  oppose  to    it   the  miserable  upper 
class,   formed    as    it  was    of    boyars,  men  Avithout   either 
strength  in  themselves  or  support  in  the  country,  menials 
of  mongrel  stock,  who  had  flocked  from  the  four  winds  of 
heaven  in  search  of  honors   and  money,  with  nothing  in 
common  save  a  desire  to  win  the  favor  of  the  Tzar,  and 
the  fear  of   being  distanced  by  more    fortunate  or  crafty 
rivals  ?     Servility  and   sycophancy,  a   ready  proneness  to 
every  sort  of  baseness  and  humiliation,  were  the  sole  pass- 
ports to  prosperity,  and    often    the  only  means  of  saving 
their  heads.     Unlike  the  similar  classes  of  other  countries, 
the  Russian  nobility,  instead  of  moderating  and  opposing 
the   despotism  of  the  Crown,   were   either  its    victims,  its 
instruments,  or  its   advocates.      Moscow    became,  in  some 
sort,  a  vast  alembic,  where,  under  pressure  of  the  iron  circle 
that  enclosed  them,  despotism  and  servility  were  elaborated, 
motn  inoprio,  by  the  reciprocal  action   of  the  ingredients 
of    which    they  were    composed.      Having    made    a    step 
in    advance,  and    seeing    all    prostrate    themselves   at  its 
feet,  absolutism  took  the  second  step.      The  habits  acquired 
by    the    fathers    became    instincts    with    the    sons,    who 
transmitted    them    augmented     and    intensified    to    their 
successors.     The  only  limits  to  this  development  were  the 
tastes  and  inclinations  of  the  despots  themselves.     But  the 
latter  being  as  barbarous  as  the  times  in  which  they  lived, 
and    having   before  them  the  example  of  their  still  more 
savage    Tartar    predecessors,   wrought    havoc   with    every 
human  right,  as  regardless  of  personal  dignity  and  honor  as 
of  every  other  virtue  which  distinguishes  men  from  brutes, 
until  the  monstrous  result  was  reached  which  made  the  rule 
of  the  Tzars  a  disgrace  to  our  common  nature. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE   POWER  OF  THE   CHURCH. 

"We  shall,  howeyer,  be  far  from  understanding  the 
strength,  the  character,  and  the  durability  of  the  Muscovite 
despotism  if,  in  addition  to  its  exterior  and  material  influ- 
ences, we  do  not  take  into  account  that  deeper  moral 
influence  which  gives  governments  so  firm  a  hold  over  the 
human  heart — the  sanction  of  religion. 

From  the  very  beginning  of  our  political  life  the  Eussian 
clergy  have  possessed  great  influence,  for  it  was  they,  and  the 
Christianity  which  they  taught,  that  were  the  means  of 
introducing  the  rudiments  of  culture  among  the  then  savage 
inhabitants  of  the  land.  Priests  and  monks  were  the  mas- 
ters and  counsellors  both  of  princes  and  subjects.  Neverthe- 
less, in  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries  Greco-Slav 
culture  began  to  take  root  in  the  country,  and,  side  by  side 
with  the  clerical  schools,  laymen,  who  gave  themselves  dili- 
gently to  study,  founded  secular  schools,  even  for  girls,  in 
every  principal  town.  But  successive  Tartar  invasions 
utterly  destroyed  these  first  germs  of  secular  learning,  and, 
according  to  the  testimony  of  our  historians,  the  Russia  of 
the  sixteenth  century  was  far  less  cultured  and  more  bar- 
barous than  the  Russia  of  the  twelfth.  Even  among  the 
higher  aristocracy  the  arts  of  reading  and  writing  became 
rare  accomplishments,  and  at  the  diet  held  in  the  reign  of 
John  ly.  there  were  princes  of  the  blood  who  were  unable 
to  sign  their  names. 

It  was  the  policy  of  the  Tartars,  as  of  most  conquering 


THE   POWEE   OF  THE   CHURCH.  33 

races,  to  respect  the  religion  of  the  conquered.  One  of  the 
first  decrees  of  the  Khans  accorded  full  and  entire  immunity 
to  churches,  monasteries  and  priests.  Study  was  confined 
exclusively  to  the  sacristy  and  the  conyent,  and  so  late  as 
the  seventeenth  century  the  clergy  alone  were  acquainted 
with  letters. 

If  there  had  been  nothing  else,  the  possession  of  this 
advantage  would  have  sufliced  to  confer  upon  churchmen 
an  influence  altogether  exceptional,  and  their  joower  was 
still  further  increased  by  their  social  and  political  position. 
It  was  to  the  clergy  that  the  people,  when  they  had  incurred 
the  displeasure  of  the  Almighty,  betook  themselves  for  con- 
solation. It  was  the  clergy  who  encouraged  them  in  the 
hour  of  defeat,  and  animated  them  with  promises  of  victory 
in  the  sacred  warfare  against  their  infidel  conquerors. 
Their  two  strongest  passions  were  religious  fanaticism  and 
patriotic  ardor,  and  of  these  passions  the  Church  was  at  once 
the  personification  and  the  expression.  It  was  the  monks, 
again,  who  roused  the  too  timorous  princes  to  rebellion 
against  the  Tartar  oppressors,  and  stories  of  saintly  and  fear- 
less anchorites  who  themselves  took  up  the  sword  to  combat 
the  enemies  of  Christ  still  live  in  legend  and  song.  In  a 
word,  it  was  the  clergy  who  put  themselves  at  the  head  of 
every  national  movement;  and  when  victory  smiled  on  the 
Muscovite  arms,  it  was  the  Church  that  reaped  the  richest 
reward. 

And  now  the  all-powerful  clergy,  who  hold  in  their  hands 
the  ingenuous  and  confiding  soul  of  the  nation,  have  be- 
come faithful  servitors  of  the  despot  and  ardent  supporters 
of  absolutism. 

The  Russian  religion  was  from  the  beginning  an  essen- 
tially national  religion,  differing  in  this  respect  from  that 
of  all  other  European  countries,  where  the  Church  was  an 
international  institution,  directed  by  a  single  chief  who 
called  himself  the  ''King  of  kings,"  and  whose  members, 
o.* 


34  RUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

whatever  their  race,  held  the  same  belief,  and  looked  to 
each  other  for  sympathy  and  support.  For  these  reasons 
Hassia  has  suffered  less  than  most  other  countries  from 
spiritual  usurpations  and  ecclesiastical  abuses.  On  the  other 
hand,  her  Church  has  been  completely  subjugated  by  the 
despotic  power,  and  made  an  ignoble  instrument  of  tyranny 
and  oppression.  Theologians  arc  pleased  to  say  that  the 
Tzar  is  not  the  head  of  the  Eussian  Church,  that  she  recog- 
nizes no  other  head  than  Jesus  Christ.  Be  it  so.  Yet  to 
draw  from  this  abstract  theory  practical  conclusions  is 
counting  without  the  host.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  in  a  des- 
potic country  where  the  persons  and  bodies  of  the  clergy  are 
at  the  mercy  of  a  sorereign  who  has  power  of  appointment 
and  deposition,  and  may  exile  them,  put  them  to  the  torture 
or  to  death  at  the  least  caprice — as  the  Muscovite  Tzars  have 
often  done — in  such  a  country  as  this  the  pretended  inde- 
pendence of  the  Church  is  a  delusion  and  a  fraud.  This 
John  IV.  abundantly  proved.  For  that  amiable  monarch, 
not  content  with  strangling  the  metropolitan  of  the  Eussian 
Church,  and  flogging  hundreds  of  priests  to  death  at  Nov- 
gorod, compelled  ecumenical  councils  to  sanction  practices 
and  doctrines  which  the  canons  and  the  apostles  condemned 
as  abominations. 

But  the  Tzars  had  rarely  need  to  constrain  the  clergy  to 
obedience  by  force.  They  had  only  to  choose  the  most  zeal- 
ous of  the  mitred  crowd  who  were  always  offering  their  ser- 
vices. For  the  education  of  our  clergy,  being  based  ex- 
clusively on  the  literature  and  history  of  the  Byzantine 
despotism,  they  had  and  could  have  no  other  political  ideal 
than  unlimited  monarchy.  And  when  John  III.  took  to 
wife  Sophia  Paleologus,  the  last  scion  of  the  imperial  Greek 
dynasty,  the  Eussian  clergy  imputed  to  their  Tzar  the  heir- 
ship of  the  Sancro-sanct  eastern  emperors  and  of  all  their 
glory  and  authority.  The  exaltation  and  culte  of  absolutism 
became  thenceforth  their  historic  mission — a  mission  which. 


THE  POWER  OF  THE  CHURCH.  35 

in  season  and  out  of  season,  and  among  every  class  of  the 
people,  they  have  faithfully  and  zealously  performed. 

Keligious  propaganda  is  the  sure,  the  last,  and  most  po- 
tent of  the  influences  which  confer  on  the  Muscovite  au- 
tocracy its  sacred  character  and  its  tremendous  power.  The 
circumstance  arising  from  the  hard  necessities  of  an  unfor- 
tunate political  life,  strengthened  by  social  conditions 
M'hicli  enlisted  on  the  side  of  despotism  every  selfish  instinct 
— ambition,  cupidity,  and  fear — were  approved,  ennobled, 
and  exalted  by  the  supreme  sanction  of  the  Church.  Obedi- 
ence to  the  Tzar  was  proclaimed  as  the  first  duty  and  high- 
est virtue  of  the  Christian  believer.  The  Tzar,  on  his  part, 
almost  believed  himself  to  be  an  incarnation  of  the  Divinity. 
Herberstein,  the  well-known  traveller,  when  he  visited  Mos- 
cow, was  gi'eatly  struck  by  the  sacred  character  so  implicitly 
imputed  to  the  sovereign  power.  ''If  you  ask  a  Musco- 
vite," he  said,  "  any  question  which  he  is  unable  to  answer, 
he  is  almost  sure  to  say,  'God  and  the  Tzar  only  know ! ' 
And  the  Tzar  himself,  if  he  were  asked  anything — for  in- 
stance, the  pardon  of  a  prisoner — would  be  almost  sure  to 
say;  'We  shall  release  him  if  it  be  the  will  of  God.'"  As 
if  he  had  a  perfect  understanding  with  the  Deity,  and  their 
relations  were  of  the  most  familiar  and  confidential  charac- 
ter !  God's  will  meant,  of  course,  his  will.  According  to 
the  Eussian  priests,  their  Divine  Master  acted  in  some  sort 
sts  their  earthly  master's  obedient  genii,  prompt  to  punish 
every  infraction,  open  or  secret,  of  the  orders  of  his  terres- 
trial vicegerent,  and  ready  to  recompense  with  eternal  bliss 
all  who  sufi;ered  patiently  and  humbly  the  undeserved  and 
unjust  punishments  which  the  Tzar,  by  reason  of  human 
fallibility  or  the  fault  of  his  agents,  might  sometimes  inflict. 
There  is  no  irony  in  this.  It  is  sober  truth.  In  an  extant 
letter  written  by  John  IV.,  the  philosopher  of  this  doctrine, 
to  Prince  Kourbski,  he  chrirges  it  against  him  as  a  sin  that 
he  escaped  from  the  clutches  of  his  sacred  majesty,  in  these 


36  RUSSIA  UNDER  THE   TZARS. 

words:  "If  you  are  a  just  and  God-fearing  man,  as  you 
say,  tell  me  why  you  have  lied,  instead  of  receiving  from  my 
hand  the  torture  and  the  death  which  would  procure  you  a 
jilace  in  heaven  ?"  And  the  worst  of  it  was  that  these 
monstrous  ideas  were  not  held  by  the  tyrant  alone  ;  they 
were  shared  by  his  people.  Though  that  ferocious  brute 
John  IV.  made  his  reign  a  very  orgie  of  cruelty,  murder, 
and  lust  ;  though  as  cowardly  as  he  was  vile — seeing  every- 
where about  him  conspiracies  against  his  life — he  scourged 
to  death  thousands  of  his  subjects,  and  inflicted  on  them 
tortures  of  which  even  to  read  makes  the  blood  run  cold ; 
though  the  libidinous  tyrant  violated  the  wives  and  daugh- 
ters of  his  boyars,  killing  all  who  showed  the  least  un- 
willingness, and  though  his  infamies  went  on  for  forty  years 
without  surcease,  not  once  during  his  monstrous  reign  was 
protest  made,  not  a  single  hand  raised  either  to  hinder  or 
avenge  these  shameful  outrages.  Historians  have  not  been 
able  to  discover  the  slightest  trace  of  any  plot  against  John 
IV.  His  victims  might  sometimes  flee,  but  resist  or  con- 
spire— never. 

And  yet  these  men  were  not  cowards.  For  the  most  part 
brave  warriors,  celebrated  for  their  exploits  in  the  field,  they 
often  showed  in  the  torture-chamber  and  on  the  scaffold 
high  qualities  of  endurance  and  courage,  and  rare  strength  of 
mind.  But  by  a  perversion  of  their  intellectual  faculties, 
due  to  their  training,  this  strength  of  mind  served  no  other 
purpose  than  to  overcome  the  natural  impulse  to  rebellion 
and  restrain  their  indignation  against  the  Tzar,  to  whom 
abject  submission  was  the  sacred  ideal  which  had  been  held 
before  them  from  their  earliest  youth.  When  Prince 
Kepnin,  after  being  impaled,  was  dying  a  slow  death  in 
atrocious  suffering,  he  sang — the  miserable  wretch — sang 
hymns  in  honor  of  the  Tzar,  his  master  and  murderer  ! 

These  are  the  services  which  have  been  rendered  to  the 
Russian  nation  by  their  Church.    During  all  the  ages  of  the 


THE   POWER   OF  THE   CHURCH.  37 

existence  of  the  Eussian  State  she  has  been  faithful  to  her 
self-imposed  and  degrading  trust.  What  more  natural  than 
that  at  the  first  awakening  of  political  conscience  in  the 
instructed  classes,  their  first  words  were  words  of  maledic- 
tion against  religion  !  What  more  just  than  now,  when  the 
first  gleam  of  the  light  of  culture  is  reaching  the  people, 
they  should  abandon  in  thousands  the  faith  of  their  fore- 
fathers ! 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE   RUSSIAN   THEOCRACY. 

Muscovy  became  a  veritable  theocracy.     True,  the  Tzar 
did  not  celebrate  the  mass,  yet  he  united  in  his  person  all 
the  attributes  of  an  absolute  king  and  of  a  chief  of  the 
State  as  irresponsible  as  a  Tartar  Khan,  and  as  infallible  as        •  ; 
a  Eoman  Pontiff.     Nothing  but  the  power  of  a  dominant  . 

priesthood  could  have  effected  this  wonderful  transforma-  | 

tion  of  the  ci-devant  condottieri  chiefs,  such  as  were  once  > 

the  ancestors  of  the  imperial  family,  into  earthly  monarchs 
with  heavenly  attributes.  | 

The  reign  of  the  latter  Tzars  of  the  Rurik  dynasty  was 
the  hot  youth  period  of  the  autocracy,  which  had  only  just 
emerged  from  the  foam  and  agitation  that  accompanied  the 
formation  of  the  State.  In  the  subsequent  period,  that  of 
the  Romanoff  Tzars,  the  despotism,  now  fully  matured, 
reached  the  last  phase  of  its  development.  Sure  of  itself 
and  confident  in  the  future,  it  now  threw  off  the  roughness 
and  violence  that  characterized  the  first  epoch  of  its  exist- 
ence. It  ceased  to  fear  and  suspect,  and  became  as  immov-  i 
able,  absolute,  and  inevitable  as  a  law  of  nature.                              I 

But  theocracy  means   stagnation.     The  Russian  people,  * 

it  should  be  remembered,  adopted  the  Christianity  of  the 
Greek  rite,  while  all  other  European  peoples  gathered 
round  the  banner  of  Rome.       Now  in  the  popular  idea,  and,  | 

above  all,  in  that  of  the  clergy — who  are  nowhere  distin- 
guished for  tolerance — this  was  equivalent  to  saying  that 
the  Russians  were  the  only  nation  who  held  the  true 
faith  of  Christ.     They  were  thus  immeasurably  superior  to 


I 


THE  RUSSIAN   THEOCRACY.  89 

all  neighboring  peoples — schismatics,  heretics,  and  unbe- 
lievers, without  exception.  And  when  in  course  of  time 
Eussia,  acquired  force  and  splendor,  not  alone  freeing 
herself  from  the  infidel  yoke,  but  attacking  her  former 
oppressors,  and  conquering  one  after  another  the  Tartar 
tribes,  religious  exaltation  was  reinforced  with  patriotic 
pride.  The  Eussian  people  were  evidently  God's  elect,  who, 
after  having  proved  them  in  the  fiery  furnace  of  slavery, 
was  now  raising  them  up  above  all  other  nations.  To  keep 
His  favor  and  deserve  His  blessing,  what  else  could  they  do 
but  follow  the  example  of  their  forefathers,  and  guard  intact 
the  holy  faith  which  had  brought  them  so  many  benefits 
and  marked  them  out  as  His  chosen  people  ? 

The  clerg}^,  whose  bigotry  was  only  exceeded  by  their 
ignorance,  did  not  content  themselves  with  conducting 
public  worship  and  attending  to  the  strict  duties  of  their 
priestly  calling.  Like  the  odor  of  rancid  oil,  they  pene- 
trated everywhere,  soiling  all  they  touched,  and  petrifying 
everything  they  pretended  to  bless.  It  was  declared  a  mor- 
tal sin  to  change  or  modify  any  custom  or  practice  inherited 
from  the  past.  ISTothing  was  too  minute  to  escape  their  at- 
tention, and  there  was  no  single  usage  which  they  did  not 
attempt  to  control.  Dress,  the  fashion  of  wearing  the  hair, 
the  preparation  of  food — trifles  light  as  air — were  gravely 
discussed  by  reverend  ecclesiastics  and  canonized  by  ecum- 
enical councils,  composed  of  the  flower  of  the  clergy  under 
the  presidency  of  the  metropolitan,  councils  which  have  left 
behind  them,  in  a  document  of  a  hundred  chapters,  an  in- 
effaceable record  of  human  folly  and  their  own  stupidity. 

Priests  and  people,  being  thus  clothed  in  perfection  from 
head  to  foot,  had  naturally  nothing  to  learn  from  miscreant 
nenizi  (mutes),  as  all  foreigners  were  indiscriminately  called 
(a  word  now  exclusively  reserved  for  Germans).  They  could 
only  contaminate  the  national  purity. 

Thus  did  clerical  fanaticism  raise  up  a  barrier  between 


40  RUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

Eussia  and  the  rest  of  Christian  Eurojoe  more  difficult  to 
surmount  than  the  great  wall  of  China,  Catholics  and 
Protestants  were  regarded  as  being  little  better  than  heathens 
and  Mohammedans.  Contact  with  them  was  sinful.  When 
these  misbelievers  visited  the  country  on  business,  they  had 
to  live  in  separate  quarters,  like  Jews  in  the  Middle  Ages. 
Their  relations  with  the  natives  were  limited  to  occasions  of 
strict  necessity,  and  they  might  not  prolong  their  stay  in 
the  country  beyond  a  limited  time  fixed  beforehand.  The 
envoys  of  foreign  governments,  who  came  from  time  to  time 
on  affairs  of  state,  were  placed  under  continual  supervision. 
The  access  to  them  of  unauthorized  persons  was  barred 
by  cordons  of  police,  who  beset  their  houses  night  and  day. 
When  they  walked  through  the  streets,  people  shunned  them 
as  if  they  had  the  plague,  and  fled  in  all  directions — of 
course  in  obedience  to  orders — and  ministers  and  others  who 
visited  the  "  foreign  devils "  in  an  official  capacity,  ran  a 
very  real  risk  of  being  charged  with  the  dire  crimes  of 
heresy  and  witchcraft. 

Muscovy,  in  truth,  was  sinking  into  a  veritable  Chinese 
torpor.  The  more  the  country  indulged  in  self-admiration, 
the  more  it  tried  to  preserve  itself  from  contact  with  the 
West,  the  deeper  it  relapsed  into  barbarism.  All  the  travel- 
lers who  visited  Eussia  in  the  seventeenth  century  were 
struck  by  the  lowness  of  its  culture  and  the  backwardness  of 
its  civilization.  At  a  time  when  Western  Europe  was 
covered  with  universities,  and  printing-presses  were  found 
in  every  city,  copying  with  the  pen  was  the  only  method  of 
multii)lying  books  practised  by  the  Muscovites.  In  1563  the 
first  printing-office  introduced  into  the  country  was  closed 
by  order  of  the  clergy,  who  regarded  it  as  an  invention  of 
the  devil ;  and  the  compositors,  John  Fedoroff  and  Peter 
Mstislavez,  only  escaped  prosecution  for  necromancy  by  flight. 
Arabic  numerals,  introduced  into  Europe  in  the  twelfth 
century,  were  not  used  in  Eussia  until  the  seventeenth. 


THE  RUSSIAN  THEOCRACY.  41 

Every  industry  was  equally  backward  ;  and  two  centuries 
after  gunpowder  had  come  into  general  use,  many  of  the 
soldiers  of  the  Tzar  still  fought  with  bows  and  arrows — even 
when  the  national  territory  had  become  so  extensive  that  the 
army  required  for  its  defence,  and  the  consequent  outlay  on 
its  maintenance,  had  increased  threefold  within  a  hundred 
years.  Wars,  moreover,  being  conducted  at  greater  distances 
from  the  capital,  were  waged  v/ith  greater  difficulty  and  at 
much  greater  cost.  Up  to  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  Russia  enlarged  her  borders  towards  the  East.  She 
now  began  to  advance  in  the  opposite  direction,  and  came 
in  contact  with  the  civilized  and  powerful  peoples  of  the 
West,  against  whom  her  army  and  her  military  equipment, 
however  efficient  against  nomad  Asiatic  tribes,  were  of  no 
avail. 

Hence  arose  demands  which  the  national  resources  of  the 
country  were  inadequate  to  meet,  and  burdens  were  laid  on 
the  people  heavier  than  they  could  bear.  The  reign  of  Tzar 
Alexis  (father  of  Peter  the  Great),  when  the  Muscovite 
Empire  received  its  greatest  accessions  of  territory,  witnessed 
also,  and  from  this  very  cause,  a  social  and  economic  crisis 
of  unexampled  severity. 

!N"ever  before  had  the  people  been  so  heavily  taxed.  Mul- 
titudes of  townsfolk  and  peasants,  unable  to  meet  the  calls 
of  the  State,  abandoned  their  fields  and  their  homes  and  fled 
whither  they  could.  This  rendered  the  lot  of  those  who 
were  left  behind  still  harder  to  bear.  They  had  to  pay 
both  their  own  taxes  and  those  of  their  fugitive  neighbors. 
Many  of  the  unfortunates  died  under  the  tax-gatherer's  stick, 
and  hundreds  of  villages  were  deserted  and  their  inhabitants 
dispersed  all  over  the  country.  It  was  sought  to  combat 
the  evil  by  issuing  savage  edicts  against  vagabondage  ;  but 
the  only  effect  of  these  measures  seemed  to  be  an  increase 
in  the  number  of  vagabonds,  and  their  conversion  into 
brigands.     The    fugitives  hid  themselves  in   forests    and 


42  RUSSIA   U25rDER  THE  TZARS. 

desert  places,  and,  passing  the  frontier  in  crowds,  took 
refuge  with  the  warlike  Cossacks  of  the  Dnieper  and  the 
Don.  These  turbulent  settlers,  who  occupied  the  steppes 
once  possessed  by  the  Tartars,  strengthened  by  so  many  new 
arrivals,  renounced  the  passive  part  of  refugees  from  ojipres- 
sion,  and  took  up  arms  to  avenge  themselves  on  the  country 
which  had  driven  them  forth.  Then  befell  the  terrible  in- 
surrection, led  by  the  ferocious  Cossack  chief  and  popular 
hero,  Stenka  Rasin,  who  raised  the  whole  of  the  south-west 
against  the  government  of  the  Tzar,  took  several  cities,  put 
to  the  sword  all  the  nobles  and  the  wealthy  who  fell  into  his 
hands,  and  shook  the  vei-y  foundation  of  the  Muscovite 
State.  But  when  the  fortunes  of  Russia  seemed  to  be  at 
their  lowest  ebb,  the  Cossack  hordes  were  utterly  routed  by 
soldiers  armed  with  modern  weapons  and  instructed  by  Ger- 
man ofiBcers. 

There  were  also  popular  movements  arising  from  the  same 
cause — the  intolerable  burden  of  taxation  and  the  cruelty 
with  which  payment  was  enforced — in  Novgorod,  Pscov, 
and  other  parts  of  the  country.  Even  in  the  capital  the 
people  rose  several  times  in  insurrection,  and  the  Tzar  could 
only  pacify  them  by  delivering  for  execution  several  of  his 
favorite  and  most  trusty  councillors,  to  whom  the  jjopulace, 
according  to  their  wont,  ascribed  all  their  misfortunes. 

It  could  no  longer  be  doubted  that  a  stram  was  being  put 
on  the  country  greater  than  it  was  able  to  bear.  To  meet 
the  new  requirements  of  the  State  and  make  head  against 
the  difficulties  of  the  times,  it  had  become  necessary  to 
infuse  new  life  into  the  body  politic  and  re-invigorate  its 
exhausted  members.  These  ends  could  be  attained  only  in 
one  way — by  adopting  the  methods  of  European  civilization, 
and,  with  the  help  of  industry  and  science,  increasing  the 
productiveness  of  labor  and  developing  the  natural  forces  of 
the  nation.  The  need  was  so  evident  and  urgent  that  even 
the  hard  and  superstitious  obscurantism  of  the  Muscovite 


THE  RUSSIAN  THEOCRACY.  43 

Government  could  no  longer  bar  the  way  of  progress.  In 
the  reign  of  Alexis,  European  civilization  obtained  a  first 
footing  at  Moscow.  Encouragement  was  offered  to  foreign- 
ers; a  whole  colony  of  foreign  artisans  settled  in  the  capital, 
and  a  j)art  of  the  army  was  drilled  in  German  fashion  and 
eqnipped  with  German  weapons.  This  was  only  the  begin- 
ning; it  was  impossible  to  put  a  limit  to  the  advance  of 
civilization.  On  the  other  hand,  progress  in  a  country 
where  a  slight  change  in  the  mode  of  dress  was  regarded  as 
an  enormous  innovation  could  not  he  otherwise  than  tenta- 
tive and  slow,  and  history  does  not  wait.  Russia  was  so 
much  behind  other  nations,  that  if  she  had  wallowed  in  her 
superstitious  stagnation  a  few  generations  longer  she  might 
never  have  recovered  the  lost  ground.  Pnissant  German 
nations  were  growing  np  at  her  borders;  Prussia  would  have 
planted  her  foot  firmly  on  the  Baltic  and  barred  for  none 
can  say  how  long  Russia's  one  path  to  international  com- 
merce and  European  culture.  The  emergency  could  be  met 
only  by  measures  both  efucacious  and  prompt,  by  the  rough 
ways  of  revolution  rather  than  by  ordinary  methods  of  re- 
form. These  measures  were  taken  under  the  auspices  of 
Tzar  Peter,  who  has  rightly  been  called  "Great,"  and  never 
was  revolution  more  opportunely  wrought. 


CHAPTER  VIIL 

THE    GREAT    EEFORMER. 

The  career  of  Peter  the  Great  is  so  well  known  in  Eng- 
land that  it  is  unnecessary  here  to  recount  his  exploits.  His 
work,  it  may  be  well  to  observe,  was  essentially  political. 
Nothing  could  be  more  absurd  than  to  represent  the  cruel 
reforming  Tzar  as  a  man  of  lofty  sentiment,  admiring  civili- 
zation for  itself,  and  desirous  of  introducing  it  into  his  em- 
pire for  the  intellectual  improvement  of  his  subjects.  In 
order  to  render  Russia  equal  to  the  fulfilment  of  her  new 
destinies  the  first  essential  was  to  make  her  a  strong  state, 
and  to  this  end  Peter  directed  all  his  energies.  Science, 
culture,  and  the  arts  he  valued  solely  for  their  practical 
utility,  caring  for  them  only  so  far  as  they  forwarded  his 
political  designs.  The  foremost  of  these  designs  was  the 
organization  of  a  powerful  military  force,  well  armed  and 
disciplined,  and  supplied  with  equipments  and  material  of 
war  from  sources  exclusively  Russian.  The  sciences  that 
Peter  protected  and  the  schools  which  he  founded  wore  such 
as  promised  to  give  him  good  officers,  engineers,  and  ad- 
ministrators. The  industries  he  most  favored  were  those 
which  provided  for  the  wants  of  his  army  and  navy,  and 
contributed  most  largely  to  the  revenues  of  the  State.  The 
new  culture  retained  this  essentially  material  character  for 
more  than  a  hundred  years,  a  period  during  which  it  enjoyed 
the  unswerving  patronage  and  support  of  the  Government. 
It  was  not  until  near  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
when  German  ideas  were  in  some  measure  superseding 
French  influence,  that  broader  views  and  a  more  liberal  and 


THE   GREAT  EEFOEMER.  45 

humane  conception  of  culture  began  to  obtain,  a  change 
which  the  Government  regarded  with  the  reverse  of  satisfac- 
tion. 

But  to  introduce  by  force  a  new  civilization — even  in  an 
exclusively  material  form — it  was  needful  to  enter  into  close 
relations  with  foreigners,  break  decisively  with  the  past,  and 
scout  all  the  traditions  and  superstitions  of  the  people,  who 
in  their  repugnance  to  reform  were  supjjorted  by  the  strong- 
est moral  force  the  nation  possessed — its  religion.  In  these 
circumstances  half-measures  would  have  been  useless.  It 
was  necessary  to  declare  open  war,  not  alone  against  popular 
superstitions,  but  against  the  priestly  caste  by  whom  they 
were  encouraged  and  maintained.  This  Peter  did,  and 
though  on  the  part  of  a  theocratic  Tzar  a  bold  and  audaci- 
cious  enterprise,  he  succeeded  to  the  full.  The  old  ecclesi- 
astical organization  was  broken  up,  and  the  higher  digni- 
taries of  the  Church  who  opposed  reform  were  replaced  by 
less  stiff-necked  ecclesiastics  borrowed  from  the  Orthodox 
Ukranian  Church.  But  Peter's  victory,  though  complete, 
was  not  achieved  without  loss.  A  Tzar  who  dragooned 
the  Church,  who  foregathered  with  heretics,  dressed  Ger- 
man fashion,  and,  not  content  with  cutting  off  his  own 
beard,  made  his  courtiers  cut  off  theirs,  could  not  possibly 
command  the  adoration  which  had  been  so  willingly  paid 
to  his  predecessors.  Peter  was  even  declared  to  be  anti- 
christ, and  it  is  highly  significant  of  the  social  and  political 
condition  of  Russia  that,  while  the  unspeakable  atrocities  of 
John  the  Terrible  did  not  provoke  even  a  show  of  resistance, 
Peter's  reforms  provoked  several  outbreaks  of  open  rebellion, 
favored  by  the  clergy,  and  fomented  by  his  more  fanatical 
opponents,  some  of  whom  even  plotted  against  his  life.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  is  quite  certain  that  neither  Peter  nor  any 
of  his  aftercomers  could  have  committed  with  impunity  the 
abominations  which  disgraced  the  reigns  of  some  of  the 
older  Muscovite  Tzars.     Paul  I.  was  put  to  death  by  his 


46  RUSSIA   UNDER   THE  TZAES. 

own  courtiers  for  offences  far  less  heinous  than  theirs  had 
been  ;  and  there  can  be  no  question  that  the  conversion  of 
tzardom  into  an  empire  has  restricted  the  arbitrary  authority 
of  the  occupant  of  the  throne.  Though  still  powerful  he  is 
no  longer  a  god. 

Yet  so  far  from  the  chief  of  the  State  having  lost  any  of 
his  sovereign  prerogatives,  the  secularization  of  the  govern- 
ment— if  I  may  be  allowed  to  use  such  a  term — by  putting  a 
check  on  merely  personal  caprice,  has  increased  tenfold  the 
real  power  of  the  crown. 

The  Muscovite  Tzars,  like  Oriental  despots,  might  op- 
press and  maltreat  individuals  to  the  full  extent  of  their 
desires ;  but  as  touching  institutions  they  were  compara- 
tively powerless,  and  had  only  a  limited  influence  in  public 
affairs.  It  is  a  striking  fact  that  when  men  set  up  a 
master  to  whom  they  ascribe  despotic  authority  and  more 
than  humg^n  attributes,  they  often  succeed  in  neutralizing 
his  power  by  very  excess  of  devotion.  They  cripple  him  with 
impalpable  chains.  The  courtiers  of  old  Japan  succeeded  in 
persuading  the  Mikado  that  if  he  moved  the  world  would 
fall  in  pieces.  So  the  poor  man,  to  prevent  so  terrible  a 
calamitv,  remained  on  his  throne  for  hours  tosrether  without 
moving  a  limb,  dropping  an  eyelid,  or  uttering  a  word  ;  and 
though  worshipped  as  a  demigod,  he  was  in  reality  more 
impotent  and  inoffensive  than  the  meanest  of  his  servants. 
If  the  ingenious  Japanese  could  have  prevailed  on  their 
Mikado  to  prolong  his  repose  for  fifteen  hours,  we  should 
have  had  a  perfectly  original  example  of  that  contradiction 
in  terms,  a  powerless  despotism.  They  did  not  quite  succeed, 
however,  for  the  Mikado  evaded  the  difficulty  by  leaving  his 
crown  when  he  quitted  his  place.  Yet  for  devices  of  this 
sort  the  palm  of  originality  must  be  conceded  to  the  court- 
iers of  Jajian.  Nowhere  else  has  anything  at  once  so  simple 
and  so  effective  been  invented.  But  there  is  found  in  all 
despotisms  something  not  unlike  it — thanks  to  what  people 


THE   GKEAT  KEFOKMEE.  47 

call  etiquette,  -whicli  is  no  more  than  an  expedient  for  check- 
ing the  activity  of  the  monarch  by  making  him  waste  so 
much  time  and  energy  in  puerile  and  useless  ceremonial 
observances  that  he  is  physically  unable  to  give  sustained 
attention  to  public  affairs,  which,  whether  he  likes  it  or  not, 
must  be  left  in  great  measure  to  the  uncontrolled  manage- 
ment of  ministers  and  courtiers.  It  was  thus  at  the  old 
French  court,  as  M.  Taine  has  so  well  described,  and  prob- 
ably even  more  so  at  the  court  of  Moscow.  The  only  dif- 
ference was  that  the  Bourbon  kings  had  to  give  most  of  their 
time  to  the  mere  ceremonial  of  etiquette — receptions,  levees, 
dressing  and  eating  in  public,  and  so  forth  ;  while  the  Mus- 
covite Tzars  were  greatly  occupied  with  religious  rites,  mas- 
ses, prayers,  visits  to  the  monasteries,  and  inspection  of 
saintly  relics.  Then  came  the  regular  routine  of  traditional 
observances,  for  in  a  theocratic  state  everything  is  sacred — 
except  the  lives  and  liberties  of  citizens.'  If  the  fancy  took 
him,  the  Tzar  might  lay  a  town  in  ashes,  and  put  the  popu- 
lation of  an  entire  province  to  the  sword  ;  but  he  could  not, 
without  exciting  general  disapprobation,  neglect  the  least  of 
old  customs  or  break  the  unwritten  laws  of  his  court.  He 
might  behead  a  noble  or  bastinado  a  boyar  with  impunity  ; 
but  it  was  impossible  for  him,  without  causing  serious  and 
lasting  discontent,  to  promote  a  man  of  plebeian  birth  to 
high  office.  Tyrant  as  was  John  IV.,  he  could  confer  only 
an  inferior  title  of  nobility  on  Adashteff,  the  favorite  of  his 
early  years,  simply  because  the  latter  happened  to  be  the  son 
of  an  inferior  officer  ;  and  it  was  not  until  nearly  the  end  of 
his  reign  that  Alexis  ventured  to  raise  his  father-in-law  and 
friend,  Artamon  Matveeff — a  simple  country  gentleman — to 
the  dignity  of  boyar.  In  order  to  reconcile  the  pretensions 
of  birth  with  the  requirements  of  the  public  service  a  double 
administration  was  created.  Great  boyars  were  made  minis- 
ters of  state,  but  their  functions  were  strictly  limited  to 
military  affairs,  each  of  them  being  provided  with  a  secre- 


48  RUSSIA   UKDER  THE  TZARS. 

tai'j  of  low  rank  aud  high  capacity,  who  did  all  the  work  and 
exercised  all  administrative  power.  Those  were  the  diaki 
and  sou-diaki  of  evil  memory.  Attached  to  every  ministry 
were  several  of  these  oflBcers,  who  were  formed  into  cham- 
bers or  colleges.  The  jealousies  and  conflicts  that  inevitably 
arose  between  these  heterogeneous  elements  greatly  impaired 
the  efficiency  of  the  service  as  an  instrument  of  government, 
the  boyars  being  much  given  to  exchange  their  part  of 
drones  for  that  of  drags,  to  the  great  detriment  of  the  ad- 
ministrative machine  and  the  injury  of  the  country. 

The  secularization  of  the  State,  though  it  lowered  the 
prestige  of  its  chief  as  a  theocratic  sovereign,  freed  him,  on 
the  other  hand,  from  the  galling  fetters  of  religious  and 
governmental  routine.  The  Tzar  became  master  of  his  time, 
and  could  give  the  whole  of  it  to  T)ublic  affairs.  Master  also 
of  his  jDeople,  he  could  make  whatever  appointments  he 
thought  fit.  His  political  power  was  thus  largely  increased, 
and  he  was  able  to  make  the  government  really  his  own. 
The  Great  Eeformer  wanted  nothing  more.  Making  a  clean 
sweep  of  antiquated  and  hierarchic  pretensions,  Peter  never 
hesitated  to  pass  over  all  his  nobles,  and  raise  to  the  highest 
posts  in  his  service  the  obscurest  plebeians,  in  whom  he 
discerned  high  capacity  for  affairs.  His  administration, 
organized  on  the  German  model,  with  ramifications  every- 
where depending  only  on  the  chief  of  the  state,  became 
absolute  and  supreme.  The  entire  nation— people,  nobles, 
and  clergy — Peter  seized  in  his  strong  grasp,  and  did  with 
them  what  he  would.  His  one  thought  was  to  make  Eussia 
a  powerful  state.  To  this  end  he  bent  all  his  energies,  and 
forced  every  interest  and  every  class  to  co-operate  in  its 
accomplishment. 

In  old  Moscow  there  was  no  standing  army.  The  fort- 
resses were  occupied  by  arquebusiers,  who,  after  finishing 
their  term  of  service,  returned  to  civil  life.  The  army  was 
composed  chiefly  of  nobles,  who  received  for  their  services 


THE   GREAT   EEFORMER.  49 

grants  of  lands  for  life — sometimes,  but  very  rarely,  in  fee 
simple.  At  the  end  of  a  war  they  always  returned  to  their 
fields.  But  to  place  Russia  on  au  equality  with  neighboring 
countries,  and  enable  Peter  to  carry  out  his  plans,  a  per- 
manent military  force  was  indispensable.  This  object  he 
effected  in  a  manner  equally  simple  and  effective.  By  a 
single  stroke  of  the  pen  he  transformed  his  militia,  com- 
posed of  men  who  had  enlisted  under  conditions  altogether 
different,  into  a  standing  army,  permanently  embodied.  To 
fill  up  the  gaps  in  its  ranks  left  by  war,  and  provide  fresh 
food  for  powder,  he  established  the  conscription,  under  the 
monstrous  condition  that  the  rank  and  file  should  serve 
with  the  colors  for  twenty-five  years.  The  nobles  were  still 
more  unfortunate.  From  the  age  of  twenty  those  of  them 
who  were  sound  in  mind  and  body  were  required,  when 
called  upon,  to  serve  the  State  in  one  capacity  or  other, 
either  as  soldiers,  sailors,  or  administrators,  until  death — • 
only  disablement  by  wounds  or  complete  decrepitude  giving 
them  the  right  to  return  to  their  homes.  And  it  was  not 
alone  bodily  service  that  Peter  required  from  his  nobles; 
they  had  to  give  also  their  intelligence,  and  to  the  end  that 
they  might  give  it  effectively,  they  were  ordered  to  be  edu- 
cated. All  young  men  of  noble  birth  were  compelled  to 
attend  schools  formed  specially  for  their  instruction.  When 
they  did  not  go  voluntarily,  soldiers  were  sent  to  fetch  them. 
If  they  resisted  they  were  flogged,  and  if  their  parents,  too 
ignorant  and  superstitious  to  appreciate  the  advantages  of 
culture,  concealed  them,  they  were  flogged  too.  When  the 
impressed  scholars  reached  the  age  of  twenty  they  were 
examined.  Those  who  passed  were  eligible  for  superior 
appointments  ;  those  who  failed  were  condemned  never  to 
marry,  and  compelled  to  serve  in  the  lower  ranks  of  the 
navy. 

To  compensate  the  aristocratic  class  for  this  eternal  bond- 
age to  the  State,  or  rather  to  enable  them  to  support  the 
8 


50  RUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

obligations  laid  on  tliem  by  the  Tzar,  the  estates,  whicli  bad 
previously  been  tenable  only  for  life,  were  made  hereditary 
possessions  in  fee  simple.  But  as  the  peasants  always  went 
with  the  land  they  cultivated,  they  became  the  serfs  of  their 
noble  masters,  to  whom  their  relations  had  hitherto  been 
those  of  vassal  to  seigneur  rather  than  of  serf  to  owner. 

Before  the  rise  of  the  Muscovite  tzardom  completely  free, 
the  Eussian  peasantry  were  gradually  reduced  to  servitude 
by  the  great,  and  in  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century  the 
Government  took  away  from  them  the  last  vestige  of  their 
ancient  liberties— the  right  of  leaving  one  lando\^ner  at  the 
end  of  the  agricultural  year  and  taking  service  with  another. 
This  privilege  was  greatly   restrained  by  Tzar  Boris,  and 
finally  abolished  a  century  later  by  Tzar  Alexis.     The'peas- 
ants   were   thenceforth   absolutely  forbidden    to  leave  the 
masters  to  whom  they  were  assigned  by  the  State.     'J'hcy 
remained,  however,  on  the  land,  for  to  have  allowed  them 
to  be  removed  would  have  been  an  injury  to  the  State.    But 
after  Peter's  time  the  seigneurs  could  dispose  of  the  peasants 
a.  their  pleasure,  and  buy  and  sell  them  as  they  bought  and 
sold  their  cattle  ;  and,  provided  the  noble  owner  ^nd  his 
heirs  male  fufilled  their  duties  to  the  State,  the  latter  never 
interfered.    The  peasants  thus  became,  in  the  fullest  sense  of 
the  word,  the  slaves  of  the  nobles,  and  from  that  time  dates 
the  true  slavery  of  the  Russian  nation. 

For  all  were  alike  held  in  bondage  to  the  State.  From 
the  nobles  it  required  their  blood,  their  time,  and  their 
Jives.  The  people,  besides  giving  many  of  their  sons  to  the 
army,  supported  with  enforced  labor  tlie  Tzar's  servants  and 
thejr  own  masters,  and  sustained  with  the  taxes  wrung  from 
their  toil  the  finances  of  government.  Sometimes  even  they 
were  constrained  to  give  the  work  of  their  hands  ;  as,  for 
instance,  in  the  construction  of  the  second  capital,  which 
tlie  Eussian  Reformer  ordered  to  be  built.  Multitudes  of 
masons,  excavators,  carpenters  and  other  laborers  were  sum- 


THE   GEEAT   EEFORMER.  51 

moncd  from  every  part  of  the  empire,  and  commanded, 
''  under  pain  of  confiscation  of  their  goods  and  death  on  the 
scatfold,"  to  raise  on  the  banks  of  the  Neva  the  great  city 
which  bears  the  name  of  its  founder.  But  how  many  when 
traversing  its  spacious  streets  bestow  a  thought  on  the  hun- 
dred thousand  nameless  serfs  at  the  cost  of  whose  lives  St. 
Petersburg  was  built  ! 

The  reign  of  Peter  was  indeed  a  hard  time  for  his  sub- 
jects. Never  before  were  a  people  called  upon  by  sovereign 
to  make  such  sacrifices  of  property  and  life — sacrifices,  it 
must  be  confessed,  in  great  part  wasted,  for  though  the 
Great  Reformer's  ideas  were  generally  luminous,  his  meth- 
ods were  often  injudicious.  He  seemed  to  prefer  violence  to 
moderation,  even  when  violence  was  not  alone  adverse  to  his 
interests  but  fatal  to  his  projects.  But  he  did  his  work — 
Eussia  became  a  powerful  State.  His  irregular  hordes,  of 
whom  85,000  had  been  utterly  routed  by  12,000  Swedes, 
were  replaced  by  a  standing,  well-disciplined,  and  woll- 
equipped  army  of  180,000  men.  He  increased  the  public 
revenues  from  three  million  roubles  to  fourteen  millions. 
So  gi'cat,  moreover,  was  the  vigor  imparted  to  the  natives 
by  European  culture  which  he  introduced,  that  its  power 
and  wealth  have  continued  to  grow  from  generation  to  gen- 
eration. Notwithstanding  the  incapacity  of  most  of  Peter's 
many  successors,  Eussia  has  maintained  her  position  as  a 
great  power  ;  and  by  her  acquisitions  on  the  Baltic  and  her 
conquest  of  the  Euxine,  she  has  assured  to  the  Slav  race  per- 
manent independence,  and  the  development  of  a  national 
culture  most  conformable  to  their  social  and  intellectual 
genius. 

This  was  the  object,  and  this  is  the  merit  of  the  military 
dictatorship  founded  by  Peter  the  Great.  It  was  an  historic 
necessity,  the  only  remedy  for  the  lethargy  of  the  period 
produced  by  the  theocratic  stagnation  of  the  old  Muscovite 
regime. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

EMANCIPATIOX. 

But  political  forms,  however  suitable  to  one  ago  and  in 
one  set  of  circumstances,  become,  in  a  later  age  and  in  other 
circumstances,  not  alone  superfluous  but  hurtful.  Instead  of 
helping  they  hinder,  instead  of  promoting  progress  they 
produce  reaction.     It  was  thus  with  Russian  autocracy. 

In  proportion  as  culture  and  civilization — following  the 
impulse  given  by  Peter — obtained  foothold  in  the  country 
and  were  accepted  by  the  people,  the  element  of  coercion, 
which  had  been  introduced  into  every  department  of  public 
life,  became  less  and  less  necessary,  and  finally  lost  alto- 
gether its  right  to  be.  In  the  time  of  the  Great  Reformer 
everything  which  had  the  least  taint  of  "  Germanism  " — in 
other  words,  of  European  culture — had  literally  to  be  forced 
down  people's  throats.  Boys  were  driven  to  school  with 
whips,  and  invitations  to  court  balls  and  soirees  were  ac- 
companied by  threats  of  confiscation  in  the  event  of  diso- 
bedience. For  the  fathers  and  mothers  of  that  age  kept 
their  daughters  under  lock  and  key  in  Oriental  fashion,  and 
it  was  an  old  custom,  faithfully  observed,  to  marry  them  to 
men  on  whom  they  had  never  set  eyes.  Even  personal 
interest  and  desire  for  wealth  were  unable  to  cope  with  the 
combined  forces  of  indolence  and  superstition. 

Russia  was  rich  in  mines,  as  well  of  gold  as  of  the  loss 
noble  metals,  hardly  any  of  which  had  been  explored. 
When  it  became  manifest  that,  in  this  instance  at  least, 
self-interest  was  not  a  sufiicient  incentive  to  exertion,  the 
Emperor  administered  a  further  stimulus — issued  stringent 


EMAKCIPATION".  53 

decrees  ordering  owners  of  mines,  under  divers  penalties,  to 
turn  their  potential  treasures  to  account,  as  "well  for  their 
own  benefit  as  for  that  of  the  State.  In  the  event  of  any 
proprietors  neglecting  to  obey  this  command,  private  in- 
dividuals were  authorized  to  open  his  mmcs  and  appropriate 
his  miuerals  without  either  asking  leave  or  paying  a 
royalty. 

Another  generation,  and  all  was  changed.  Self-interest, 
outgrowing  superstition,  no  longer  required  the  spur  of 
Government  prescription  !  Landowners,  not  content  with 
working  mines  already  discovered,  sought  eagerly  fresh 
sources  of  wealth.  It  v/as  no  longer  necessary  to  fine  nobles 
who  persisted  in  wearing  the  national  dress,  nor  to  cut  off 
their  beards  by  force,  nor  to  drag  people  to  balls  and  amuse- 
ments by  the  hair  of  their  heads.  The  influence  of  fashion, 
and  love  of  pleasure  were  proving  more  potent  than  violence 
and  threats.  The  masters  of  schools  no  longer  frightened 
parents  and  children  out  of  their  senses,  for  the  latter,  now 
in  their  turn  parents,  were  eager  to  bestow  on  their  children 
that  education  which  they  had  once  regarded  with  aversion 
and  alarm.  Thus  in  private  life  coercion  came  to  an  end, 
for  the  very  sufficient  reason  that  there  was  nobody  to 
coerce. 

A  similar  result  was  wrought  in  the  general  functions  of 
the  State. 

In  the  reign  of  Peter  III.  (17G2),  three  generations  after 
the  publication  of  the  great  Peter's  ukase  imposing  in- 
voluntary service  on  the  aristocratic  class,  appeared  another 
ukase  known  as  the  "  Enfranchisement  of  the  ISTobles," 
whereby  they  were  left  free  to  serve  the  State  or  not,  as  they 
pleased,  without  any  derogation  of  their  rights  and  priv- 
ileges. The  reasons  assigned  by  the  Government  for  this 
measure  afford  a  remarkable  proof  of  the  change  which 
in  less  than  a  century  had  come  over  the  social  condition  of 
Eussia.     In  the  emphatic  language  of  the  ukase  it  had  been 


54  RUSSIA   UlSTDER  THE  TZARS. 

needful,  during  the  reigns  of  Peter  and  his  immediate  suc- 
cessors, to  constrain  the  nobles  to  render  service  to  the  State, 
and  compel  them  to  instruct  their  children;  but  the  desire  for 
education  being  now  so  general  and  so  great,  and  the  zeal  of 
the  upper  classes  for  the  public  service  having  produced  so 
many  excellent  and  courageous  captains  and  able  admini- 
strators, the  Emperor  considered  that  the  system  of  coercion 
had  become  superfluous,  and  ordered  it  to  be  abolished. 

Though  suggested  mainly  by  a  desire  to  please  the  nobil- 
ity, this  measure  was  fully  justifiable  on  grounds  of  public 
policy.  The  number  of  men  able  and  willing  to  serve  the 
State  being  more  than  enough,  it  had  become  unnecessary, 
and  therefore  absurd,  to  use  coercion,  and  neither  then  nor 
since  have  Russian  governments  had  to  complain  of  a 
paucity  of  tchinovnihs  or  military  officers ;  they  have  only 
had  to  "  take  their  pick"  from  a  host  of  competing  candi- 
dates. 

If  the  Government  of  that  time  had  been  moved  solely  by 
considerations  of  justice  and  of  sound  policy,  the  emanci- 
pation of  the  nobles  would  have  been  immediately  followed 
by  the  emancipation  of  the  peasants.  For  the  latter  were 
reduced  from  the  condition  of  vassals  to  that  of  slaves  solely 
to  compensate  the  nobles  for  the  obligatory  service  to  the 
State  imposed  on  them  by  Peter  the  Great.  With  their  re- 
lief from  this  burden,  the  landowning  class  lost  all  right  to 
the  involuntary  and  unpaid  labor  of  the  tillers  of  the  soil. 
It  was  perhaps  an  instinctive  conviction  of  this  truth  on  the 
part  of  the  peasants  that  gave  rise  to  the  exaggerated  hopes 
Avhich  culminated  in  the  widespread  and  frequent  servile  in- 
surrections of  the  period.  But  abstract  considerations  of 
equity  have  little  weight  in  political  evolutions.  Serfage,  no 
longer  needed  in  the  interest  of  the  Government,  was  re- 
tained for  the  benefit  of  the  aristocracy. 

At  last  came  the  turn  of  this  institution.  Serfage  was 
abolished  in  18G1.     It  would  be  impossible,  even  if  it  v/ere 


EilAKCIPATION.  55 

desired,  to  ignore  the  salient  causes  of  this  great  reform — on 
the  one  hand,  the  humane  sentiments  of  our  instructed 
society  imbued  with  modern  ideas ;  on  the  other,  the  wish 
to  remove,  once  for  all,  the  danger  of  violent  convulsions 
from  which,  while  the  great  mass  of  the  people  groaned  in 
bondage,  the  country  was  neyer  free.  Both  these  causes 
were,  however,  in  full  operation  fifty  years  before  emancipa- 
tion came  to  pass.  It  is  therefore  manifest  that  there  must 
have  been  a  third  cause,  a  cause  even  more  pressing  than 
the  other  two,  and  which  inclined  the  balance  m  favor  of 
freedom. 

This  cause  is  not  far  to  seek.  Every  manual  of  political 
economy  tells  us,  and  experience  proves,  that  in  every  coun- 
try where  slavery  prevails  there  arrives  a  time  when  it 
ceases  to  profit  individuals,  and  becomes  prejudicial  to  the 
best  interests  of  the  State.  When  food  is  dear,  a  slave, 
whose  heart  can  never  be  in  his  work,  may  consume  as 
much  as  he  produces,  and  so  earn  little  if  anything  for  his 
master  ;  and  industrial  deyelopment  is  altogether  incompat- 
ible with  involuntary  servitude.  Hence  the  enfranchise- 
ment of  Russian  serfs  was  not  alone  a  question  of  humanity, 
it  had  become  an  economic  necessity.  During  what  may  be 
called  the  preparatory  period,  from  1855  to  1860,  when  the 
Crimean  War  had  made  manifest  the  misery  and  backward- 
ness of  Russia,  in  comparison  with  other  countries,  the 
most  effective  arguments  used  by  the  advocates  of  freedom 
were  of  the  economic  order.  And  the  immense  industrial 
development  which  ensued  in  the  sixteen  or  eighteen  years 
(until,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  despotism  put  fresh  obsta- 
cles in  the  way)  after  emancipation  took  place,  proved  to 
demonstration  the  justice  of  their  views  and  the  wisdom  of 
the  measure. 

In  this  way,  and  as  a  direct  consequence  s>t  the  growth  of 
enlightenment  and  the  internal  development  of  the  country, 
the  last  economic  burden  laid  on  the  people  by  political 


56  RUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

coercion  was  removed.  All  the  functions  of  the  national 
life  were  now  performed  without  Government  interference, 
simply  by  the  spontaneous  operations  of  ordinary  causes 
and  the  promptings  of  individual  needs.  The  knout  was 
no  longer  required  to  drive  peasants  to  the  fields  and  crafts- 
men to  the  workshoj).  Public  life  became  tranquil.  The 
country  ceased  to  be  a  volcano  in  a  state  of  ebullition,  be- 
cause for  the  implacable  hatred  felt  by  the  slave  for  his  mas- 
ter was  substituted  the  relatively  mild  antagonism  between 
employer  and  emjiloyed. 

This  being  the  case,  what  need  was  there  for  an  autocracy 
— a  military  dictatorship  ?  What  need  for  the  Central 
Government  to  retain  its  absolute  authority  and  unlimited 
power  if  it  had  only  to  perform  simple  and  peaceful  admin- 
istrative duties  as  they  are  performed  in  neighboring  coun- 
tries ?  It  is  a  grotesque  anomaly.  The  autocracy  has  lost 
its  political  raison  cVHre — its  right  to  be.  It  has  become 
useless,  and  consequently,  insupportable  and  tyrannical. 
The  instructed  classes  were  the  first  to  perceive  this.  It  was 
they  who  felt  so  strongly  the  shame  and  injustice  of  keeping 
the  people  in  bondage,  and  v/ho  wrought  so  ardently  for 
their  emancipation.  How,  then,  could  they  help  being 
moved  to  indignation  by  the  virtual  slavery  imposed  by  the 
autocracy  on  themselves  and  the  country  at  large  ? 

It  was  only  in  the  nature  of  things  that  concurrently  with 
the  movement  of  1860  in  favor  of  freeing  the  serfs,  there 
should  be  a  general  movement  among  all  the  instructed 
classes  of  Russian  society  in  favor  of  liberalism  and  all 
that  it  signifies.  But  the  autocracy  remained  immovable. 
Owing  to  the  jjeculiar  condition  of  the  country  the  Govern- 
ment had  at  its  disposal  an  immense  force,  and  it  resolved 
to  resist  to  the  utmost. 

There  are  two  causes  which  render  an  open  struggle 
against  the  Eussian  absolutism  extremely  difiicult.  The 
first  is  that  which,  during  the  whole  of  our  unhajjpy  past. 


EMANCIPATION.  57 

has  served  so  well  the  turn  of  despotism — the  yast  size  of  the 
country,  the  immensity  of  distances,  and  the  poverty  of 
great  centres  of  population — conditions  that  make  the  com- 
mon concerted  action  of  considerable  masses  materially  im- 
possible. The  second  cause  (less  important  because  less 
permanent,  thongli  it  promises  to  disappear  within  a  measur- 
able time  and  is  for  the  present  of  great  gravity)  arises 
from  the  want  of  moral  union  among  the  different  classes  of 
the  nation.  Eussia  has  no  hourgeoisic,  in  the  proper  sense 
of  the  word,  none  like  that  which  made  the  French  Revolu- 
tion of  1789,  and  provided  the  people  with  leaders  and 
guides.  Our  instructed  and  liberal  class  is  composed  for 
the  most  part  of  ci-devmit  nobles  and  small  landowners,  to 
whom  the  people  have  not  yet  forgiven  the  Avrongs  they  suf- 
fered at  the  hands  of  their  forefathers. 

Thus  the  Government,  which  keeps  its  forces  terribly  con- 
centrated, has  before  it  an  enemy  scattered  and  crushed, 
materially  and  morally  disunited.  The  strategic  position 
of  the  Government  is  therefore  cruelly  strong.  It  makes  the 
most  of  its  advantages,  runs  counter  to  the  best  interests  of 
the  nation,  and  while  oppressing  the  still  ignorant  masses, 
wages  against  the  instructed  class  a  war  without  mercy  and 
witiiout  truce.  For  twenty-five  years  has  this  contest  con- 
tinued, ever  extending,  ever  developing  fresh  phases,  and 
becoming  ever  more  crnel  and  desperate. 

In  the  following  pages  I  propose  to  make  clear  the  true 
nature  of  the  struggle  which  is  now  going  on,  and  the  phase 
wliich  it  has  reached.     That  done  we  shall  endeavor  to  pre- 
sent its  probable  result. 
3* 


PART  II. 
DARK    PLACES. 


CHAPTEK  X. 

A   NOCTURIA AL  SEARCH. 

At  St.  Petersburg  on  a  night  in  the  year  1875.  The  clocks 
have  just  gone  two  ;  the  town  is  asleep,  and  a  deep  silence 
reigns  in  the  capital  of  the  Tzar.  The  wide  and  empty 
streets,  dimly  lighted  with  flickering  gas  lamps,  straight 
and  erect  like  a  line  of  soldiers,  look  as  if  they,  too,  were 
taking  thoir  repose  after  the  fatigues  and  excitement  of  the 
day.  The  innumerable  little  carriages,  with  their  diminu- 
tive horses,  which  form  so  striking  a  feature  of  the  great 
city,  converting  thoir  now  deserted  tlioroughfares  into  an 
ever-flowing  stream  of  wheels,  horseflesh,  and  human  heads, 
have  vanished  from  the  scene,  and  tlie  few  drivers  that  still 
remain  on  the  stands,  vainly  hoping  for  fares,  are  fast 
asleep  on  their  own  droshkics.  The  dvorniks  (porters)  of 
great  houses,  having  neither  visitors  to  receive  nor  suspects 
to  watch,  sleep  in  their  niche  the  sleep  of  the  just,  while  the 
hollow  ring  of  his  footsteps  on  the  granite  flagstone  reminds 
the  solitary  wayfarer  of  the  lateness  of  the  hour.  At  the 
corner  of  Liteiuaia  Street  and  the  Basseinaia,  a  gorodovvi  or 
city  sergeant  stands  on  guard.  Having  to  keep  order  in  his 
beat,  he  is  supposed  to  be  wide  awake,  and  as  he  leans 
against  a  wall  with  his  hat  pressed  low  on  his  head,  it  would 


A  NOCTrK:N"AL  SEAKCH.  59 

puzzle  the  sharpest  of  inspectors  to  know  whether  all  his 
senses  are  steeped  in  oblivion,  or  he  has  merely  shut  his 
eyes  the  better  to  meditate  on  the  world's  wickedness,  and 
the  most  effectual  methods  of  defeating  the  wiles  of  pertu- 
bators  of  the  peace.  The  good  man  may  indulge  without  com- 
punction in  these  solitary  musings.  The  soothing  influence 
of  the  night  has  appeased  for  a  while  the  passions,  the  greed 
and  the  struggles  of  the  human  ant  hill  around  him.  St. 
Petersburg  sleeps  its  first  sleep  and  all  is  quiet. 

But  what  is  that  strange  company  which  emerges  noise- 
lessly and  mysteriously  from  the  great  house  near  the  sus- 
pension bridge  over  the  dark  and  deep  canal  ?  One  by  one 
they  come  until  some  fifteen  are  assembled  in  the  street, 
whereupon,  in  obedience  to  a  whispered  order,  they  ''fall 
in  "  and  glide  swiftly  through  the  deserted  streets.  Half  of 
them  are  clad  like  common  folk,  the  others  are  in  uniform. 
Had  the  civilians  marched  in  the  centre,  there  could  be  no 
doubt  as  to  the  character  of  the  cortege,  but  the  men  in 
mufti  go  in  front  and  lead  the  way,  the  military  bringing 
up  the  rear.  As  this  strange  company  pass  towards  the 
Liteniaia,  the  tramping  of  their  feet  and  the  rattle  of  their 
arms  seem  to  affright  all  who  hear  them.  The  slumbering 
gorodovvi  rouses  himself  with  a  sudden  start,  pushes  back 
his  hat,  stands  bolt  ujiright,  and  gives  the  military  salute  to 
the  leader  of  the  company,  which,  however,  the  latter  does 
not  deign  to  return.  The  droshky  driver,  wakening  up,  rubs 
his  eyes  and  glances  in  fear  at  the  portentous  apparition. 
The  belated  passenger,  when  he  sees  it,  turns  hastily  into  a 
by-street,  and  there  waits  until  the  procession  has  gone  past; 
then,  coming  from  his  hiding  place,  he  follows  the  group 
with  his  gaze,  wondering  whither  they  are  bound,  and  per- 
chance regretting  that  their  destined  victim,  less  fortunate 
than  himself,  will  be  unable  to  keep  out  of  their  way. 

For  these  men  are  intent  on  no  errand  of  kindness  or 
mercy.     They  are  servants  of  the  State,  guardians  and  rep- 


60  RUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

resentatives  of  public  order,  on  their  way  to  vindicate  the 
authority  of  the  hiw  and  perform  an  act  in  its  defence. 

Let  us  follow  them. 

After  traversing  several  wards,  they  turn  into  a  little 
street  on  the  right,  and  call  a  halt,  whereupon  three  of  their 
number  draw  aside  and  literally  and  figuratively  put  their 
heads  together.  Then  they  separate,  and  the  owners  of  the 
heads  give  whispered  directions  to  the  others,  pointing  the 
while  to  a  large  house  hard  by.  It  is  against  this  building, 
which  contains  many  dwellings,  and  looms  through  the 
darkness  like  a  gi-eat  grey  giant — the  windows  all  closed  like 
the  eyes  of  a  man  who  sleeps  in  security,  fearing  no  evil — 
that  the  attack  is  to  be  made.  The  force  divides,  one  slij)- 
ping  round  the  street  corner  to  take  the  giant  in  the  rear, 
while  the  other  goes  boldly  to  the  front,  and  wakens  the 
slumbering  dvornik.  The  man,  jumping  up  in  sudden 
alarm,  mutters  some  incoherent  words,  but  is  speedily 
silenced  by  one  of  the  men  in  civil  dress.  Then,  without 
question  or  hesitation,  he  lets  these  peremptory  visitors, 
who  may  be  robbers  in  disguise,  into  the  house  of  which  he 
is  the  appointed  guardian,  lights  a  lantern,  and,  hatless  and 
half-clad  as  he  is,  his  long  beard  streaming  in  the  wind, 
leads  the  way.  With  catlike  steps,  procurator,  policemen, 
and  spies  mount  the  staircase,  the  gendarmes  raising  their 
sabres  and  treading  softly,  while  the  civilians  exchange 
remarks  in  lowered  voices.  The}^  might  be  taken  for  a  band 
of  brigands,  led  by  a  man  whom  they  had  forced  to  be  their 
accomplice. 

"  It  is  here,"  says  the  dvornik  at  length,  pointing  to  a 
door. 

On  this  the  leader  makes  a  sign  to  his  men  *' to  hurry  up," 
and  the  next  moment  tliey  are  all  assembled  before  the  door. 
After  assuring  himself  by  a  rapid  glance  that  every  man  is 
in  his  place,  the  chief  whispers  something  in  the  dvornik's 
car,  and  asks  him  sternly  "  if  he  understands." 


A  KOCTUEN"AL  SEARCH.  61 

The  dvornik  nods  his  head,  goes  to  the  door  and  gives  a 
strong  pull  at  the  bell.  This  he  rings  a  second  time,  and  a 
few  minutes  later  the  sound  of  footsteps  is  heard  inside. 

''  Who  is  there  ?"  asks  a  woman's  voice. 

**It  is  I,  Nicolas  Ivanoff.  I  have  a  telegram  for  the 
master.'^ 

On  this  the  key  is  heard  turning  in  the  lock,  the  doors 
open,  and  the  crowd  of  sbirris,  pushing  back  the  half-dressed 
servant,  swarm  into  the  dwelling. 

The  vindicators  of  order  are  now  in  possession  of  the  fort- 
ress. Their  next  proceeding  is  to  secure  the  garrison. 
Everybody  being  asleep,  they  can  only  do  this  by  going  into 
bedrooms,  heedless  of  the  screams  and  protests  of  frightened 
women  and  the  cries  of  suddenly  awakened  children. 

The  first  sur]n-ise  over,  the  father  of  the  family  demands 
of  the  one  who  seems  to  be  the  leader,  who  he  is,  and  the 
meaning  of  the  intrusion. 

''  I  am  the prisfav,"  is  the  answer,  "and  this  gentleman 
is  the  procurator.     We  are  come  to  make  a  search." 

"  I  have  not  the  pleasure  of  knowing  you.  You  have  a 
warrant,  I  suppose  ?" 

''  Of  course.     Otherwise  I  should  not  be  here." 

"  Would  you  be  good  enough  to  show  it  me  ?" 

"  It  would  be  useless.     Besides,  I  have  not  brought  it  with 

I  left  it   in  my  oiSce.      But  there  can  be  no  mistake. 

You  are  surely  Mr.  N .     Your  daughter  lives  with  you. 

She  is  in  that  bedroom.     We  want  nothing  more.     It  is  on 
her  account  we  are  here." 

"But  you  will  at  least  send  your  men  out  of  the  rooms. 
My  wife  and  daughter  cannot  dress  in  their  presence." 

"  They  will  have  to  do  so,  though,"  says  the  police  officer, 
with  a  grim  smile.  "  Do  you  think  I  am  going  to  leave 
them  un watched  ?  They  might  conceal  or  destroy  some- 
thing that  could  boused  as  evidence  against  them." 

The  father,  after  a  further  remonstrance,  finding  himself 


63  EUSSIA   UlTDER  THE  TZARS. 

altogether  powerless  to  hiuder  the  threatened  outrage,  asks 
that  his  protest  may  be  recorded  in  the  protocol. 

"  Certainly,  if  you  wish  it,"  says  the  officer,  with  a  con- 
temptuous gesture.     "But  what  difference  will  that  make?" 

The  mother  and  her  j'oung  daughter  are  then  made  to 
rise  from  their  beds  and  dress  before  the  men  who  have  taken 
possession  of  their  room.  If  the  commander  of  a  search 
party  in  these  circumstances  withdraws  his  men  for  a  few 
minutes  from  the  room,  it  is  an  act  of  j)ure  courtesy  and 
complaisance  on  his  part.  The  law  and  his  superiors  allow 
him  to  do  as  he  thinks  fit. 

At  length  all  the  members  of  the  household  are  up  and 
clothed.  Every  adult  is  tlien  given  in  charge  to  a  policeman 
— one  to  each.  Another  officer  is  told  off  to  watch  over  the 
children  and  prevent  them  from  communicating  vv'itli  their 
elders,  and  the  search  begins.  First  the  chambers  are  over- 
hauled, bedclothes  turned  topsy-turvy,  drawers  opened, 
their  contents  tumbled  on  the  floor,  and  everything  minutely 
examined.  The  next  proceeding  is  to  search  the  attic 
rooms,  for  not  a  hole  or  corner  of  the  dwelling  is  overlooked. 
BookS;  papers,  and  private  letters — especially  the  last — are 
eagerly  sought  and  carefully  inspected.  Nothing  is  sacred 
to  Russian  police  agents.  The  young  lady  who  has  in- 
curred their  suspicion  and  given  them  all  this  trouble, 
watches  their  doings  unmoved,  as  it  would  seem,  in  full 
assurance  that  the  search  will  lead  to  no  compromising 
revelation.  But  unfortunately  for  her  this  confidence 
proves  to  be  premature,  A  policeman  opens  the  drawer  of 
a  little  cabinet  in  which  she  keeps  her  own  particular  letters, 
and  as  he  fumbles  amongst  them  she  perceives  a  bit  of 
paper  whose  existence  she  had  forgotten.  The  sight  of  this 
morsel  of  manuscriiDt  moves  her  to  the  quick  ;  she  becomes 
painfully  agitated  ;  for  though  there  is  nothing  in  it  to  hurt 
her,  it  contains  a  name  and  an  address  which  may  be  the 
means  of  delivering  another  to  imprisonment  and  exile ; 


A  NOCTUllN'AL  SEARCH.  63 

and  the  fault  will  be  hers  !  After  a  cursory  glance  at  the 
paper,  the  officer  lays  it  aside  and  goes  on  with  his  inspec- 
tion of  her  letters,  a  proceeding  which  suggests  to  the  poor 
girl  a  desperate  expedient.  With  a  single  bound  she  is  at  the 
cabinet,  and,  seizing  the  paper,  puts  it  into  her  mouth. 
But  the  very  next  moment  two  brutal  hands  are  at  her 
throat.  With  a  cry  of  indignation  the  father  rushes  for- 
ward to  protect  his  child.  In  vain  !  before  he  can  reach 
lier  he  is  pushed  back,  forced  into  a  chair,  and  held  there 
fast,  while  three  of  the  ruffians  deal  with  the  young  girl. 
One  holds  her  hands,  another  grasps  her  throat,  and  a  third, 
forcibly  opening  her  mouth,  thrusts  into  it  his  dirty  fingers 
to  get  out  the  paper  which  she  is  trying  to  swallow.  Writh- 
ing, panting,  and  desperate,  she  does  her  utmost  to  accom- 
plish her  purpose  ;  but  the  odds  against  her  are  too  great. 
After  a  short  struggle  the  zerhcre  lays  on  the  table  a  piece 
of  white  pulp,  streaked  with  blood,  and  as  the  men  loose 
their  hold,  their  victim  falls  fainting  on  the  floor. 

"  The  insolent  conduct,"  as  it  is  called,  of  Miss  N" 

will  be  fully  set  forth  in  the  official  depositions.* 

Whether  the  address  which  Miss  IsT desired  to  destroy 

be  deciphered  ornot  w'll  now  make  very  little  difference  to  her 
personally.  The  mere  attempt  will  be  taken  as  proof  of 
conscious  guilt  and  punishment  meted  out  to  her  accordingly. 

The  search  is  now  conducted  with  greater  zeal  than  ever. 
Many  of  the  letters  are  read  at  once,  others  are  taken  to  be 
read  at  leisure.  Everything  in  the  house  is  necessarily,  in 
these  circumstances,  at  the  mercy  of  the  police — plate.  Jew- 
elry, cash,  all  pass  through  their  hands — and  it  is  an  open 
secret  that  the  victims  of  a  search  often  lose  both  liberty  and 

The  scene  above  described  is  no  imaginary  one.  It  happened  thus 
to  Miss  Varrara  Battushkoff,  daughter  of  General  Nicholas  Battush- 
koff.  The  police,  in  trying  to  force  a  piece  of  paper  from  her  mouth, 
broke  one  of  her  teeth,  and  many  more  young  girls  have  been  simi- 
larly maltreated. 


64  RUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

money,  or  money's  vrortli.  Yet  complaints  are  rarely  made, 
and  for  very  good  reason.  Even  if  the  thief  could  be  iden- 
tified, a  most  improbable  contingency,  restitution  would 
almost  certainly  be  refused,  and  the  man  who  attacks  the 
police  makes  for  himself  a  host  of  implacable  enemies,  who 
are  sure  sooner  or  later  to  have  their  revenge. 

The  search  goes  on  until  daylight.  Every  corner  has  been 
examined  ;  even  the  chair  cushions  have  been  ripped  open, 
and  the  flooring  of  the  young  lady's  bedroom  taken  up, 
on  the  chance  of  finding  beneath  it  some  forbidden 
books  or  compromising  papers.  Eor,  as  all  English  readers 
may  not  be  aware,  the  possession  of  literature  which  the 
State  deems  pernicious  is  in  Russia  a  penal  offence. 

The  business  is  now  over  and  the  tragic  moment  has 
arrived.  The  young  lady  is  sternly  bidden  to  say  farewell 
to  her  kindred.  No  tears  are  shed,  they  are  too  j)roud,  too 
indignant  to  show  such  weakness  in  the  presence  of  the 
enemy.  Yet  in  the  outwardly  calm  countenances  of  the 
l^arents,  as  they  fold  their  child  in  their  arms,  may  be  read 
a  yery  agony  of  apprehension  and  sorrow.  What  will 
become  of  her  ?  Will  they  let  her  out  alive  ?  Shall  they 
ever  see  their  darling  again  ?  It  may  be  with  her  as  with 
others.  .  .  AVith  a  desperate  effort  the  mother  keeps  down  a 
rising  sob — her  heart  is  torn  with  anguish— she  kisses  her  child 
agam,  perhaps  for  the  last  time ;  the  prisoner,  too  much 
overcome  to  speak,  tears  herself  away  and  hastens  to  the  door. 

Five  minutes  later  is  heard  the  rolling  of  the  wheels 
which  convey  the  lost  one  to  the  dungeons  of  the  Tzar  ;  and 
a  darkness,  as  of  night,  has  descended  on  these  three  lives, 
]t  may  be  for  years,  it  may  be  forever.  One  is  that  of  a 
young  creature  now  doomed  to  unknown  sufferings,  but 
yesterday  full  of  energy  and  life ;  two  others  are  those  of 
parents  long  past  their  prime,  whose  secret  tears  and  silent 
grief  are  all  the  more  bitter  and  intense  that  they  have 
neither  the  martyr's  courage  nor  the  hero's  hope. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

THE   POLICE. 

The  kind  of  search  I  have  described,  known  in  conti- 
nental countries  as  a  '^perquisition  "  (albeit  in  most  of  them 
no  domiciliary  visit  can  be  made  in  the  night),  but  for 
which  the  English  language  has  no  equivalent,  because  no 
English-speaking  joco^jle  have  the  thing,  though  it  may  be 
regarded  as  the  ordinary  and  normal  Eussian  method,  is  not 
the  only  one,  being  modified  according  to  circumstances  and 
the  caprice  of  those  by  whom  it  is  conducted. 

From  time  immemorial  Russian  police  searches  have  been 
made  by  night — deeds  of  this  sort  loving  darkness  rather 
than  light;  but  it  would  be  wrong  to  infer  therefrom  that 
Russian  families  enjoy  absolute  immunity  from  these  unwel- 
come visitations  during  the  day.  The  police  often  make 
searches  during  the  day,  because  it  is  the  time  when  they 
are  least  expected,  when  people  are  the  least  prepared  to  re- 
ceive and,  possibly,  to  deceive  them.  They  like  to  take  their 
victims  by  surprise,  and  they  know  that  a  man  whom  they 
want  generally  leaves  his  friend's  house  towards  midnight 
and  repairs  to  some  undiscoverable  hiding-place.  A  secret 
meeting  will  adjourn  rather  than  continue  its  deliberations 
until  a  late  and,  therefore,  a  dangerous  hour.  As  the  police, 
by  appearing  unexpectedly,  may  make  a  rich  prize,  they  do 
not  restrict  their  visits  to  any  particular  time.  On  the  other 
hand,  there  are  good  reasons  why  they  should  make  them 
mostly  at  night.  In  the  first  place,  nocturnal  searches 
cause  less  scandal  than  davlight  visits.  All  that  the  neigh- 
bors  know  next  morning  is  that  somebody  has  disappeared. 


66  EUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

At  one  or  two  o'clock  a.m.,  moreover,  the  police  are  pretty 
sure  to  lind  people  at  home  and  to  take  them  mare  or  less 
by  surprise.  Ilence  the  watches  of  the  night,  when,  in 
other  countries,  the  sanctity  of  the  home  enjoys  the  special 
protection  of  the  law,  is  of  all  others  the  time  when  the  sub- 
jects of  the  Tzar  enjoy  the  least  security  and  are  exposed  to 
the  gi-a vest  jjerils.  During  the  periods  of  "white  terror," 
which  generally  follow  on  great  attempts  or  detected  plots, 
Avhen  searches  by  the  hundred  are  made  right  and  left,  there 
is  hardly  a  family  belonging  to  the  educated  classes  who,  on 
retiring  to  rest,  do  not  tremble  at  the  thought  that  before 
morning  they  may  be  roused  from  their  sleep  by  the  despot's 
emissaries.  At  one  of  these  periods  (after  the  Solovieff  at- 
tempt), the  ordinary  gaols  being  so  crowded  with  prisoners 
seriously  compromised  that  there  was  no  room  for  the  many 
persons  who  were  merely  suspected,  without  a  shadow  of 
evidence,  the  latter  had  to  be  confined  in  the  common  room 
of  Litovsky  Castle.  They  lived  together  and  were  very  gay, 
as  in  Eussia  is  always  the  case  when  many  friends  meet  un- 
expectedly in  prison.  Before  going  to  bed,  as  one  who  was 
there  has  told  me,  they  would  say  to  each  other,  "Ah,  we 
shall  sleep  soundly  to-night,  for  here  we  are  in  safety" — a 
grim  pleasantry  of  Avhich  none  but  those  who  have  lived 
"under  the  Tzars"  can  understand  the  full  significance. 

Deceiving  people  by  a  falsehood  or  a  stratagem  in  order 
to  make  them  open  a  door  without  mistrust  is  a  common 
proceeding  of  the  Russian  police.  When  (on  December  16, 
1878)  they  wanted  to  arrest  Doubrovkin,  an  officer  quartered 
at  Starai-Russa,  a  town  not  far  from  St.  Petersburg,  they 
caused  the  chief  of  his  battalion  to  say  that  he  had  an  im- 
portant communication  to  make  to  him  on  the  business  of 
the  regiment.  The  police  of  Odessa,  desiring  on  one  occa- 
sion to  make  an  arrest,  raised  a  cry  of  fire  at  the  door  of 
their  victim,  who,  rushing  out  in  all  haste,  only  half  clad, 
fell  into  their  hands  and  was  carried  off  without  ceremony. 


THE  POLICE.  67 

But  when  scarclies  arc  so  frequent  that  everybody  expects 
them,  the  police,  as  a  rule,  reserve  their  artifices  for  special 
cases'.  For  as  au  engineer  may  be  hoist  with  his  own  petard, 
60  may  an  artifice  be  turned,  against  its  contrivers.  That  of 
the  telegram  brought  by  a  dvornik  in  the  dead  of  night  is 
becoming  somewhat  stale,  and  when  an  alarm  of  fire,  or  of 
any  other  calamity  is  given,  you  scent  a  still  greater  danger 
and  forthwith  burn  your  papers  and  otherwise  prepare  your- 
self for  an  imminent  police  visitation. 

Your  arrangements  completed,  you  open  the  door  and 
play  the  part  of  an  ingenuous  innocent.  The  police  cannot 
well  punish  you  for  not  making  haste  to  receive  an  apocry- 
phal despatch,  or  to  escape  from  an  imaginary  fire.  Know- 
ing this,  they  mostly  prefer  to  knock  loud  enough  to  awaken 
the  dead,  crying  at  the  same  time,  "  The  police  !  the  police  ! 
open  the  door  or  we  will  break  it  in." 

Nor  is  the  threat  a  vain  one.  The  Eussian  police  make 
no  scruple  about  housebreaking,  an  art  in  which  they  are  as 
accomplished  as  professional  burglars.  They  sometimes  be- 
gin in  this  way — when  they  can  do  so  without  making  a 
noise.  At  the  seizure  of  the  clandestine  printing-office  of  the 
Tcherny  Peredel  (on  January,  1880)  the  gendarmes,  either 
by  lifting  the  doors  from  the  hinges,  as  the  official  report 
said,  or  by  using  skeleton  keys,  as  ran  the  rumor,  took  the 
inmates  by  surprise  and  arrested  them  all  as  they  lay  in  bed. 

Violence  and  brutality  were  always  in  Eussia  the  concom- 
itants of  domiciliary  searches  and  arrests,  and  with  the  in- 
crease of  severity  in  the  treatment  of  political  criminals 
generally,  the  violence  has  become  greater  and  the  brutality 
more  ruthless. 

What  causes,  it  may  be  asked,  are  held  sufficient  to  justify 
the  defenders  of  order  in  making  these  nocturnal  visitations 
and  troubling  so  cruelly  the  repose  of  peaceful  citizens  ? 
The  question  is  one  which  occurs  naturally  to  an  English- 
man, but  if  put  to  a  Eussian  he  would  merely  shrug  his 


68  RUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

shoulders,  and  smile  at  the  simplicity  of  the  obseiTation. 
"  Could  anything  be  more  absurd  !  "  he  would  probably  ex- 
claim ;  for  in  Russia  it  is  a  question  of  the  zeal  of  the  po- 
lice, never  of  the  rights  of  the  subject.  Eussia  is  in  a  con- 
dition of  internal  warfare,  and  the  police,  being  the  right 
arm  of  one  of  the  belligerent  parties,  does  not  protect,  it 
ficrhts.  Wherever  the  enemy  is  they  must  be  ready  to  attack 
him  ;  any  place  where  he  is  supposed  to  be  they  must  beset. 
An  officer  of  police  who  hesitates  to  make  a  search  without 
sufficient  cause,  or  an  arrest  without  a  warrant,  would  be 
looked  upon  as  not  worth  his  salt,  an  idler  who  wanted  to 
receive  fat  pay  without  giving  anything  in  return.  A  mem- 
ber of  the  force  who  desires  to  win  promotion  or  even  to 
keep  his  place  cannot  afford  to  be  scrupulous.  He  must  be 
as  keen,  as  vigilant,  and  as  ready  as  a  sleuth-hound  on  the 
quest.  At  the  least  sign,  or  the  merest  suspicion  of  a  scent, 
he  must  join  in  the  chase  and  seize  the  quarry,  where  he 
can.  And  come  what  may,  let  the  sign  be  ever  so  deceptive, 
the  chase  ever  so  fatal,  he  is  always  encouraged  by  the 
thought  that  he  will  merit  the  approbation  of  his  superiors. 
For  never  yet  has  it  happened  for  an  officer  of  police  to  be 
punished  for  making  a  search  on  insufficient  grounds.  I 
doubt  if  for  this  cause  a  reprimand  has  ever  been  given,  and 
it  is  quite  certain  that  the  men  who  have  the  fewest  scruples 
are  the  most  rapidly  advanced. 

Here  are  a  few  instances — by  no  means  extreme — of  the 
methods  of  our  Russian  police,  taken  almost  at  random 
from  the  great  mass  of  materials  at  my  disposal  : 

On  a  fine  day  in  May,  1879,  a  small  army  composed  of  in- 
fantr}'',  Cossacks,  and  gendarmes  set  out  from  the  town  of 
Koupiansk,  province  of  Karkoff,  drums  beating,  music 
playing,  drum-major  at  their  head,  and  muskets  at  the  trail, 
as  if  they  were  marching  to  meet  an  invader.  But  the  force 
being  under  the  command  of  the  procurator  it  was  evident 
that  the  enemies  they  were  about  to  encounter  were  either 


THE  POLICE.  69 

actual  rebels  or  suspected  Nihilists.  The  first  object  of  at- 
tack was  Mr.  Boguslavsky,  a  large  landowner.  The  garden 
and  grounds  were  surrounded  by  a  cordon  of  soldiers,  while 
the  procurator  Metclmikoff,  at  the  head  of  a  posse  of  police- 
men and  gendarmes,  beset  the  house,  which  naturally  sur- 
rendered at  discretion.  After  turning  everything  upside 
down  in  their  usual  fashion,  they  examined  the  garden  with 
equal  care,  dragged  the  fishpond,  and  left  no  corner  of  the 
premises  unvisited.  But  their  search  was  fruitless,  and  they 
had  to  go  away  as  empty-handed  as  they  came.  Neverthe- 
less Mr.  Boguslavsky  was  placed  under  domiciliary  arrest, 
and  a  guard  left  in  possession  of  his  house. 

The  detachment  next  paid  a  visit  to  Mr.  Balavinsky, 
justice  of  the  peace  for  the  district  of  Senkofr,  whom  they 
treated  in  like  manner,  but,  as  before,  the  police  discovered 
not  a  shred  of  evidence  to  justify  their  suspicions.  Were 
searched  also  the  houses  and  grounds  of  Mr.  Voronez  and 
Mr.  Dihokovsky,  rich  landowners  who  had  filled  public 
offices,  with  the  same  result.  Nothing  was  found.  Never- 
theless Mr.  Voronez  was  taken  away  to  prison,  and,  after  be- 
ing kept  for  some  time  in  custody,  exiled  to  a  remote  prov- 
ince in  the  north,  that  of  Olonez.  What  he  had  done  to 
merit  this  punishment  he  never  knew.  It  was  said  at  the 
time  that  there  had  been  some  rumors  to  his  disadvantage 
among  the  peasants. 

At  length  the  procurator  withdrew  his  men  and  took  his 
departure,  leaving  the  representatives  of  the  Koupiansk  nobil- 
ity in  a  state  of  utter  bewilderment  as  to  the  cause  of  the  sud- 
den and  unwelcome  visit  they  had  received,  and  the  annoy- 
ance to  which  they  had  been  exposed.  Nor  had  they  yet 
done  with  this  zealous  official.  A  few  months  later  he  paid 
them  still  another  visit,  proceeded  precisely  in  the  same  way 
as  before  with  precisely  the  same  result.  But  as  it  was 
deemed  necessary  to  show  some  wool  for  all  this  cry  several 
innocent  persons  were  arrested  and  exiled  by  administrative 


70  RUSSIA   U2sDER  THE  TZAES. 

order ;  for,  on  the  principle  that  guilt  should  not  be  im- 
puted until  it  is  proved,  we  have  a  right  to  assume  that  the 
very  fact  of  these  unfortunates  being  neither  brought  to 
trial  nor  accused  of  specific  offence  implies  their  innocence. 

With  Mr.  Kotchalovsky,  justice  of  the  peace  for  the  dis- 
trict of  Ekaterinoslav,  the  procurator  was  more  fortunate. 
The  police  found  in  his  house  the  manuscript  copy  of  a 
speech  delivered  by  a  workman  called  Peter  Alexeeff,  at  the 
**  Trial  of  the  Fifty."  For  this  crime  the  judge  was  exiled 
to  Archangelesk,  in  the  extreme  north  of  Russia. 

Until  it  was  revealed  by  the  iu discretion  of  one  of  his 
clerks,  the  cause  of  the  procurator's  excessive  zeal  remained 
a  mystery.  In  1874,  that  is  to  say  five  years  previously. 
Ml'.  Leo  Dmokovsky,  one  of  the  early  apostles  of  revo- 
lution, was  sentenced  to  eight  years'  hard  labor  for  having 
printed,  in  a  clandestine  printing-office,  two  socialist  pamph- 
lets. But  a  part  only  of  his  type  and  plant  were  taken,  the 
rest  he  had  either  destroyed  or  hidden  safely  away.  Now, 
as  it  happened,  this  gentleman  was  also  a  Koupiansk  land- 
owner and  akin  to  several  of  the  neighboring  gentry.  So 
Mr.  Procurator  Metchnikoff,  turning  things  over  "  in  what 
he  was  pleased  to  call  his  mind,"  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  missing  type  was  concealed  in  some  country  house 
of  the  district.  Hence  this  military  pomp  and  parade,  all 
these  portentous  visits,  house  searchings,  fish-pond  draggings, 
and  the  rest,  proceedings  which  both  surprised  and  amused 
the  peasants  and  other  mhabitants  of  the  neighborhood. 

According  to  another  version — in  a  country  where  the 
press  is  fettered  rumor  naturally  takes  the  place  of  news 
— the  procurator  had  some  old  scores  to  settle  with  the  no- 
bility of  Koupiansk,  and  took  this  means  of  ''  serving  them 
out,"  the  affair  of  the  lost  type  being  merely  a  pretext. 

An  equally  characteristic  incident  came  to  pass  in  August 
of  the  same  year  in  the  government  of  Tchernigoff.  Mr. 
F ,  doctor  of  the  district  of  Borzensky,  a  public  func- 


THE  POLICE.  71 

tionary  in  the  service  of  Zemstvo,  received  a  visit  from  Mad- 
ame B ,  wife  of  a  magistrate  of  Kieff,  a  lady  of  rank  and  a 

persona  grata  in  the  salons  of  the  governor  of  the  p'rovince. 
She  was  accompanied  by  a  maid  and  a  man-servant.  Imme- 
diately on  Madame  B 's  arrival  her  host  as  in  duty  bound 

notified  the  fact  to  the  local  ouriadnik,  a  sort  of  rural  con- 
stable, at  the  same  time  showing  him  her  papers — a  pass- 
port granted  by  her  husband,  the  magistrate,  and  a  certifi- 
cate signed  by  the  president  of  the  judges  of  Kieft'.  The  doc- 
tor mentioned  that  there  were  two  persons  in  the  lady's  suite, 
but  that  their  papers  had  been  inadvertently  left  behind 
at  Kietf,  whither  he  proposed  to  telegraph  for  them.  This, 
however,  as  Madame  B was  staying  in  the  neighbor- 
hood only  a  few  days,  and  the  doctor  could  personally 
vouch  for  her  respectability,  the  ouriadnih  declared  to  be 
unnecessary.  Judge  then  of  her  surprise  when,  three  days 
afterwards,  the  pristav  (chief  of  police)  called  at  the  house 
and  wanted  to  see  her.  Thinking  that  the  man  had  made  a 
mistake,  that  it  was  her  host  he  wanted  to   see,  she  sent 

word  by  her  maid  that  Doctor  F was  not  at  home.  But 

this  only  led  to  a  repetition  of  the  demand,  the  pristav  insist- 
ing that  it  was  Madame  B he  wanted  to  see,  and  see  her 

he  would.  So  she  went  to  him  in  no  very  good  humor,  and 
asked  what  he  meant  by  thus  importuning  her.  But  instead 
of  apologizing,  he  stigmatized  her  as  a  "suspect,"  and  put 
her  under  domiciliary  arrest.  He  also  arrested  her  two  ser- 
vants, and  led  them  off  to  the  prison  of  Borzna. 

The  true  and  only  motive  for  this  proceeding  was  the  de- 
sire of  Kovalevsky  {i\\Q  pristav)  to  distinguish  himself,  and 
emulate  the  example  of  his  comrade,  Pristav  Malakoff, 
■whose  zeal  in  making  arrests  had  been  rewarded  by  the  ap- 
probation of  his   superiors,  rapid  advancement,  and  better 

pay.    The  reason  assigned  for  the  arrest  of  Madame  B and 

her  servants  as  set  forth  in  the  official  report  sent  to  the  chief 
of  the  KiefE  police  by  i\\Q  pristav  of  Borza,  was  that  a  woman 


72  RUSSIA  U]SrDER  THE  TZAES. 

had  arrived  there  without  papers,  who,  according  to  current 
rumor,  kept  amilliner's  shop  in  the  Krechtchatik  (one  of  the 
principil  streets  of  Kieff)  the  hetter  to  conceal  her  partici- 
pation in  revolutionary  plots ;  and  milliners  and  shopmen 
being,  as  was  Avell  known,  Nihilists  in   disguise,  Madame 

B 's  pretended  maid  and  man-servant,  as  well  as  their 

soi-disant  mistress,  were  placed  under  arrest.  A  few  days 
later,  when  the  j^assports  had  been  verified,  the  lady's 
identity  established  beyond  doubt,  and  everything  found  in 
order,  they  were  all  released  ''without  a  stain  on  their  char- 
acters ;  "  but  they  received  no  amends  for  their  unwarrant- 
able detention,  nor  i\\e  ^ristav  any  reprimand  for  his  sharp 
practice. 

Mr.  Henri  Farino,  member  of  a  highly  respectable 
French  firm,  being  at  Klinzy,  a  manufacturing  town  in 
the  province  of  Moscow,  for  a  purely  business  purpose, 
happened  to  meet  at  the  house  of  his  host,  a  notary  of  the 
name  of  Szelovsky,  the  chief  of  the  local  police,  to  whom  he 
was  presented  in  due  form.  For  some  unexplained  reason 
the  latter  gentleman  before  leaving  asked  his  host  for  the 
Frenchman's  passport.  The  document  granted  by  the  repub- 
lic, and  vise  at  St.  Petersburg,  as  also  by  the  Governor  of 
Moscow,  was  found  to  be  unimpeachably  correct.  Never- 
theless Mr.  Farino's  luggage  was  overhauled,  his  person 
searched,  his  money  taken,  his  letters  and  other  papers 
carried  off  to  be  searched,  and  himself  placed  under  arrest. 
But  the  intercession  of  JMr.  Subzelovsky,  and  of  Professor 
Isaeff  of  the  Jaroslav  Lyceum,  procured  his  provisional  re- 
lease, and  a  few  days  later  the  French  Consul  obtained  from 
the  central  authorities  an  order  for  the  restoration  of  his 
countryman's  effects,  and  his  full  discharge. 

Yfith  such  instances  as  these  volumes  might  be  filled.  It 
will  be  observed  that  in  every  case  which  I  have  adduced, 
the  initiative  was  taken  by  the  police.  The  cases  in  which 
the  police  are  set  in  movement  by  the  denunciation  of  private 


THE  POLICE.  73 

enemies  and  amateur  informers,  are,  if  possible,  still  more 
mimerous  and  revolting.  Creatures,  the  vilest  and  most 
abject,  the  very  offscourings  of  society,  who  would  not 
be  believed  on  their  oaths,  have  it  in  their  power,  by  secret 
accusations  and  pretended  revelations,  either  to  gratify  spite 
begotten  of  envy,  or  avenge  imaginary  wrongs  on  the  objects 
of  their  hate.  'No  denunciation,  by  whomsoever  made, 
remains  innocuous.  A  cook  whom  you  have  dismissed,  or 
a  thieving  man-servant  whom  you  have  threatened  to  pros- 
ecute, has  only  to  say  you  are  a  Socialist,  and  the  nocturnal 
search  follows  as  a  matten  of  course.  Is  there  a  competitor 
who  annoys  you,  a  former  friend  to  whom  you  want  to  do 
an  ill  turn  ? — ^you  have  only  to  denounce  him  to  the  police. 
When  the  Government,  in  a  lucid  interval,  instituted  the 
so-called  Committee  of  Revision,  they  were  shocked  by  the 
number  of  false  denunciations  that  came  to  light ;  yet  which, 
despite  their  fraudulent  character,  had  been  most  disastrous 
for  their  victims.  It  was  said  at  the  time  that  the  minister 
would  prosecute  these  perjurers  and  false  witnesses.  But 
the  times  changed.  The  reaction  set  in,  and  under  the 
rcgi7ne  of  Count  Tolstoi,  every  hope  of  reform  was  aban- 
doned, every  good  resolution  forgotten,  and  the  crowd  of 
spies  and  denouncers  were  allowed  to  resume  their  dirty 
work. 

Informers  are  not  even  obliged  to  give  their  names.  An 
anonymous  denunciation  has  just  the  same  effect  as  a  duly 
signed  charge.  It  sets  the  police  to  work.  The  domiciliary 
visit  and  the  midnight  search  follow  as  a  matter  of  course. 
Subsequent  proceedings  depend  on  the  discovery  of  com- 
promising documents,  or  of  facts  which  the  leader  of  the 
search  party  may  deem  suspicious. 

The  police  are  respecters  neither  of  numbers  nor  persons. 

There  is  a  house  in  Cavalregarde  Street,  St.  Petersburg,  not 

far  from   the  Tavreda   Gardens,  which  occupies  nearly  a 

whole  quarter.      It  is  a  building  of  five  stories,  contains 

4 


74  RUSSIA  U]S"DER  THE  TZARS. 

scores  of  small  dvv'ellings,  and  is  probably  inhabited  by  at 
least  a  thousand  persons.  Many  of  the  inmates  are  medical 
students,  attached  to  the  Nicolas  Hospital  hard  b3\  The 
heads  of  the  police  heard  a  vague  rumor  that,  somewhere 
in  this  rabbit  warren  dangerous  jjeople  were  in  hiding,  and, 
possibly,  subversive  plots  being  hatched.  A  nocturnal  visi- 
tation was  promptly  organized.  At  dead  of  night  the  vast 
building,  big  as  a  cotton  factory,  was  beset  with  a  battalion 
of  infantry  and  an  equal  force  of  policemen.  The  latter, 
broken  up  into  detachments  of  threes  and  fours,  swarmed 
into  the  corridors,  the  staircases  and  the  stair-landings. 
They  made  incursions  right  and  left ;  a  dozen  inmates  were 
summoned  "  to  open  to  the  police  "  at  the  same  time.  The 
alarm  spread  like  wildfire  ;  in  a  few  minutes  everybody  in 
the  house  was  awake  and  afoot,  and  lights  gleamed  in  all 
the  windows.  But  a  sentinel  posted  at  every  door  kept  the 
inmates  prisoners  until  their  turn  should  come.  The 
dwellings  were  searched  in  batches  of  twelve  at  a  time,  by 
as  many  different  search  parties,  and  the  inquisition  went  on 
until  every  part  of  the  building  had  been  thoroughly  over- 
hauled. Nothing  whatever  was  found  ;  but  the  police,  not 
liking  to  go  away  empty-handed,  carried  off  several  captives, 
all  of  whom  were  released  a  few  days  afterwards. 

This  is  far  from  being  a  solitary  case.  After  great  '' at- 
tempts," above  all,  after  the  first  and  the  last,  it  was  seriously 
proposed  to  search  every  dwelling  in  St.  Petersburg.  This, 
of  course,  could  not  be  done — the  thing  was  physically 
impossible — but  several  streets  were  actually  overhauled  from 
house  to  house,  and  from  end  to  end.  One  block  of  build- 
ings at  a  time  was  surrounded  by  a  regiment  of  soldiers  who 
arrested  and  detained  every  one  who  tried  to  enter  in  or  go 
out.  Wliile  this  went  on  outside,  the  police  were  at  work 
inside.  When  they  had  done,  they  went  to  the  next  block, 
and  repeated  the  operation  until  the  whole  street  had  been 
gone  through. 


THE  POLICE.  75 

These  marchings  of  soldiers  at  dead  of  night,  this  break- 
ing like  burglars  into  the  dwellings  of  peaceful  citizens, 
rifling  their  rooms  and  terrifying  their  children,  seems  to 
have  been  conceived  in  the  very  wantonness  of  des})otism. 
The  system  was  equally  scandalous  and  absurd.  The 
searches  were  useless  ;  the  searchers  found  nothing,  for  their 
visits  being  exjjected — sometimes  mysteriously  announced 
beforehand — measures  were  always  taken  to  render  them 
abortive.  Sudeikin  understood  this.  After  his  advent  to 
power  they  were  discontinued,  for  one  reason,  perhaps, 
because  since  that  time  there  has  been  no  great  "attempt." 
Yet  none  the  less  is  the  fact  of  the  system  having  existed, 
and  been  so  rigorously  practised,  highly  characteristic  of  the 
methods  of  Eussian  government,  and  the  views  of  those  who 
rule  on  the  important  principle  known  as  "inviolability  of 
the  domicile."  Judged  by  the  infallible  test  of  their  actions, 
they  deem  the  sanctity  of  a  man's  home,  the  quiet  of  his 
house,  to  be  utterly  unworthy  of  respect.  Police  on  the 
quest  are  no  more  expected  to  give  heed  to  the  trouble  and 
harm  they  may  inflict  on  peaceful  citizens  than  the  hunter, 
hot  in  chase,  is  expected  to  give  heed  to  the  grass  on  which 
he  tramples,  or  the  brambles  which  he  thrusts  aside. 

Another  extraordinary  incident  of  the  system  of  search, 
as  practised  in  Russia,  is  that,  as  the  right  of  domiciliary 
visitation  belongs  to  sundry  functionaries,  who  act  inde- 
pendently of  each  other,  several  descents — two,  three,  and 
even  four — are  sometimes  made  on  the  same  house  in  the 
same  day.  This,  tliough  hardly  credible,  is  strictly  true. 
In  the  spring  of  1881,  there  was  staying  at  Clarens,  on  the 
shores  of  Lake  Leman,  a  Russian  lady,  the  widow  of  Coun- 
cillor R .     She  was  then  about  forty  years  old,  and  had 

four  children.  During  the  panic  that  followed  the  13th  of 
March,  this  lady  received  seven  police  visits  within  the 
space  of  twenty-four  hours.  Seven  times  in  one  day  and 
night  did  she  hear  the  terrible  summons,  "Open   to  the 


76  RUSSIA  UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

police ;  '*  seven  times  was  her  house  ransacked,  and  herself 
compelled  to  undergo  a  cruel  ordeal. 

*'  This  was  more  than  I  could  stand,"  she  said.  "  I  have 
four  children;  so  I  left  St.  Petersburg  and  came  here." 

It  may  be  thought  that  this  lady  was  deeply  and  notori- 
ously compromised,  or,  that  at  any  rate,  the  police  had 
strong  ground  for  suspecting  her  of  complicity  to  some  rev- 
olutionary enterijriso.  Not  the  least  in  the  world.  In  that 
case  she  would  have  been  promptly  arrested.  She  was  inno- 
cence itself,  and  so  void  of  offence  that  when  she  wanted  a 
passport  for  Switzerland,  the  j^olice  made  no  difficulty 
about  complying  with  her  request.  The  seven  searches 
were  made  at  random,  *'by  pure  misunderstanding,"  as  was 
afterwards  ex23lained.  ]\Iisunderstanding3  of  this  sort  are 
frequent  in  Russia.  It  has  befallen  only  too  many  to  be  ar- 
rested by  mistake,  exiled  by  a  misunderstanding,  and  kept 
several  years  in  jDrison  under  a  misapprehension.  All  this 
has  hai)pened.  I  shall  say  more  thereupon  in  a  future 
chapter.  It  is  a  fact  well  known  to  every  Eussian ;  and 
when  the  police  limit  themselves  to  making  unwelcome 
visits,  and  searching  our  houses  by  night,  we  consider  our- 
selves fortunate  in  being  let  off  so  easily. 

The  position  of  Eussian  subjects  with  reference  to  the  in- 
violability of  their  domiciles,  is  aptly  described  in  a  scene 
by  our  great  satirist. 

'*  Do  you  know  what  it  would  be  necessary  to  do,  to 
satisfy  everybody  ?"  asked  Glousnov  of  his  friend. 

"  It  would  be  necessaiy  to  have  two  keys  for  every  house. 
One  I  should  take  for  myself,  the  other  I  should  give  to 
tlie  police,  so  that  they  might  come  in  whenever  they  chose 
to  satisfy  themselves  as  to  my  innocence.  Would  it  not  be 
equally  advantageous  for  both  sides  ?  " 

The  friend  sees  the  matter  in  precisely  the  same  light ; 
the  proposed  arrangement,  he  thinks,  would  be  a  great  ad- 
vantage for  everybody  concerned.     But  he  gravely  reminds 


THE    POLICE.  77 

Glousnov,  that  in  most  houses  there  are  a  strong  box  and  a 
plate  chest,  that  his  project  might  jjossibly  expose  him  to 
the  suspicion  of  desiring  to  tempt  the  guardians  of  order 
to  "  Lay  hands  on  the  sacred  vessels."  That  would  be 
serious  1 


CHAPTER  XIL 

THE   HOUSE  OF  PREVENTATIVE   DETENTION. 

But  let  us  return  to  our  heroine,  whom  we  left  on  her 
way  to  prison  under  the  escort  of  a  brace  of  gendarmes. 

From  the  corner  of  the  vehicle  in  which  she  is  ensconced 
she  can  see  over  the  closed  blinds  into  the  street,  where, 
early  as  it  is,  people  are  beginning  to  more  about.  The 
poor  girl  seems  quiet  and  resigned,  but  her  eye  dwells  ou 
every  object  she  passes  as  if  she  might  never  see  it  again, 
and  despite  her  outward  composure  her  brain  is  working  with 
feverish  activity.  In  half  an  hour,  perhaps  in  a  few  min- 
utes, the  prison  doors  will  be  closed  upon  her.  She  will 
have  to  undergo  an  examination.  That  is  certain.  But  of  what 
will  she  be  accused — what  can  the  police  have  against  her  ? 
And  as  the  carriage  rattles  over  the  stony  pavement,  her  eyes 
still  fixed  on  external  objects,  she  turnsher  mental  gaze  inward 
and  examines  herself  before  the  tribunal  of  her  own  con- 
science. She  is  only  eighteen  years  old,  and  has  lived  at  St. 
Petersburg — where  she  came  to  pursue  her  studies — but  a 
few  months.  Xot  a  long  time,  yet  long  enough  for  her  to 
have  committed  several  high  crimes  and  misdemeanors, 
poor  child  !  First  of  all  she  is  on  terms  of  close  friendship 
with  a  certain  X,  once  a  student,  now  an  ardent  and  success- 
ful revolutionary  propagandist  among  the  peasantry.  He 
was  the  companion  of  her  childhood.  When  they  were  in 
the  country  he  sometimes  wrote  to  her,  and  it  was  one  of  his 
letters  which  she  had  tried  to  destroy.  At  St.  Petersburg 
they  met  as  occasion  served,  and  through  his  introduction 


THE   HOUSE   OF  PEEYEXTATIVE  DETENTION.  79 

she  had  made  several  new  acquaintances  of  like  views  with 

himself.     One  was  Miss  Z ,  to  whom  she  was  indebted 

for  many  acts  of  thoughtful  kinduess,  and  to  whom  she  ren- 
dered several  in  return.  Once,  when  the  former  anticipated 
a  visitation  from  the  police,  she  took  into  her  charge  a  packet 
of  forbidden  books.  Another  time  she  took  a  pamphlet  to 
a  fellow  student,  and,   last  of  all,  she  had  allowed   Miss 

Z to  use  her  address  for  the  former's  correspondence. 

Serious  offences  all  of  them,  and  if  the  police  knew  every- 
thing she  would  be  utterly  lost !  But  they  could  not  know 
everything.  Impossible  !  Yet  something  they  must  know 
— or  suspect.  How  much,  and  what  ?  That  was  the  question. 
Here  our  captive's  reverie  is  interrupted  by  the  sudden 
stoppage  of  the  carriage,  and  looking  through  the  window 
she  sees  a  fine  four-storied  building  in  a  style  of  architecture 
at  once  elegant  and  severe.  It  is  the  palace  of  the  new  in- 
quisition— the  House  of  Preventative  Detention.  How  well 
she  knows  the  hypocritical  building  with  its  long  ranges  of 
high  andbeautifully  arched  windows,  hiding,  like  the  serried 
squares  of  soldiers  at  an  execution,  the  horrors  going  on 
within  !  How  often  had  she  stopped  before  the  double- 
faced  building,  thinking  with  a  mingled  sense  of  admiration 
and  sorrow  of  the  unfortunates  who  languished  behind  those 
pretty  semi-rustic  walls  !  "Who  could  have  thought  that  in 
so  short  a  time  their  fate  would  be  hers  !  She  alights,  and 
with  a  grave,  preoccupied  face  approaches  a  tall,  majestic 
gateway,  like  that  of  some  beautiful  temple,  just  high  enough 
to  admit  the  car  of  the  condemned,  who  are  prepared  for 
their  last  journey  in  the  prison  yard.  A  wicket  in  the 
massive  brown  door  silently  opens,  and  the  sentinel,  a  great 
giant  of  a  man  who  handles  his  big  musket  as  easily  as  if  it 
were  a  bamboo  cane,  gives  no  more  heed  than  the  stone  posts 
that  border  the  footpath.  Then  there  is  a  rattle  of  bolts 
behind  her ;  the  wicket  closes.  Who  can  tell  when  it  will 
open  again — for  her  ? 


80  RUSSIA  UNDER  THE  TZAES. 

They  take  her  to  the  oflBce  ;  they  put  down  her  uame,  age, 
and  description.     Then  a  voice  cries  from  below  : 

'' Receive  number  (let  us  say)  thirty-nine  !" 

"  Ready  !  "  answers  a  voice  from  above. 

Number  Thirty-nine,  escorted  by  a  warder,  mounts  the 
staircase.  On  one  of  the  landings  she  is  delivered  to  another 
■warder,  who  conducts  her  to  cell  thirty-niDC. 

This  cell  is  thenceforth  the  captive's  world.  A  little  box, 
but  new,  clean  and  neatly  arranged,  four  paces  wide  and  five 
long.  A  truckle-bed,  a  little  table  fastened  to  the  wall,  a 
little  stool,  a  gas-pipe  and  a  water-pipe.  She  examines  all 
these  objects  with  curiosity  and  a  sense  of  pleasant  surprise. 
After  all,  the  devil  is  not  so  black  as  he  is  painted.  She  has 
hardly  finished  her  examination  when  she  is  startled  by 
strange  noises — mysterious  rappings  coming,  as  it  would 
seem,  from  the  inside  of  the  wall.  Placing  her  ear  to  it  she 
listens  intently.  The  knocks,  though  weak,  are  distinct. 
They  do  not  come  regularly  and  mechanically,  but  with  a 
rhythm  and  cadence,  as  if  they  were  inspired  by  an  intelli- 
gence, and  were  meant  to  convey  some  hidden  or  spiritual 
meaning.  What  could  be  the  import  of  the  mysterious 
sounds  ?  Ah,  she  understands  !  She  has  heard  say  that  the 
inmates  of  prisons  sometimes  communicate  with  each  other 
by  means  of  little  knocks— after  the  manner  of  a  telegraphic 
alphabet.  These  rappings  must  come  from  a  neighbor- 
some  companion  in  misfortune  who  wishes  to  speak  to  her. 
So  in  token  of  thanks  and  sympathy  she  gives  back  a  few 
answering  knocks.  The  next  moment,  to  her  utter  surprise, 
there  are  rappings  all  round  her.  From  the  opposite  wall 
comes  a  series  of  sharp  loud  knocks  as  if  the  knocker  were 
boiling  over  with  impatience  or  anger.  There  was  then 
another  fellow  sufferer  in  need  of  sympathy  !  As  she  raises 
her  hand  to  reply  there  comes  a  sound  from  below  as  rhyth- 
mic, yet  more  sonorous  than  the  others.  The  medium  in 
this  case  is  the  water-pipe,  and  then,  as  if  it  had  been  an 


THE  HOUSE  OF   PEEYEliTATIVE   DETENTION".  81 

echo,  comes  a  similar  call  from  above.  The  little  box  is 
filled  with  these  little  sounds,  as  if  crickets  were  at  work,  or 
as  if  the  mysterious  beings  believed  in  by  spiritualists  were 
rapping  messages  from  the  invisible  world. 

The  captive's  first  feeling  was  one  of  fear.  Were  there, 
then,  prisoners  above  her,  prisoners  below  her,  prisoners  on 
every  side  of  her  in  this  sinister  abode  ?  Was  she  but  a  sol- 
itary unit  in  a  swarm  of  unfortunates  ?  Then  came  a  sense 
of  annoyance,  of  keen  regret,  that  it  had  never  occurred  to 
her  to  learn  this  prison  alphabet.  Her  inability  to  under- 
stand the  rappings  which  continued  to  resound  in  her  cell 
made  her  ashamed  of  herself — almost  desperate.  What  could 
they  mean  ?  What  were  her  unseen  neighbors  saying  ?  Not 
knowing  the  interpretation  she  could  answer  nothing.  One 
by  one  the  knocks  ceased,  and  the  same  profound  silence  as 
before  reigned  around  her.  But  a  few  moments  later  one  of 
the  knockers  began  afresh.  Perhaps  he  pitied  the  new 
comer's  ignorance,  and  was  offering  to  instruct  her.  This 
time  the  knocks  are  lighter  and  more  distinct,  as  if  to  en- 
able her  the  better  to  count  them,  and  are  not,  as  previously, 
so  interrupted  by  pauses.  As  she  listens,  strenuously  trying 
to  make  out  what  they  can  mean,  she  has  a  happy  thought. 
It  is  that  each  knock  may  correspond  with  a  letter  of  the 
alphabet  according  to  the  order  in  which  it  is  given.  In  that 
case  the  reading  of  the  rappings  will  be  an  easy  task.  She 
will  wait  for  the  first  pause,  and  when  the  knocks  recom- 
mence link  them  with  letters  of  the  alphabet — one  for  the 
first  letter,  two  for  the  second,  and  so  on.  The  pause  comes. 
It  is  followed  by  more  knocks.  Listening  eagerly,  and  count- 
ing with  rapt  attention,  she  makes  out  a  letter,  then  another 
then  a  third.  The  three  form  a  word.  Then  two  more 
words  are  spelled  out.  "  Who  are  you  ?  "  asks  her  neigh- 
bor. 

''How   shall   she  answer?"     In   the   same   manner  of 
course.     So  she  telegraphs  her  name,  and  a  few  other  phrases 
4* 


82  RUSSIA  UKDER  THE  TZAES. 

are  exchanged.  Her  obliging  neighbor  next  teaches  her 
the  code,  equally  simple  and  convenient,  by  means  of  which, 
after  a  little  practice,  conversation  becomes  easy  and  rapid. 

It  is  through  this  acoustic  language  that  hundreds  of  in- 
telligent and  sensitive  beings,  though  invisible  to  each  other, 
and  forever  divided,  exchange  ideas  and  commune  together. 
Deprived  by  the  implacable  cruelty  of  their  fellow  men  of 
human  society,  condemned  to  live  and  suffer  in  a  silence  as 
of  death,  it  is  to  the  walls  that  shut  them  in— dumb  wit- 
nesses of  their  solitude— that  they  communicate  their  mus- 
ings and  tell  their  griefs.  And  the  stones  and  the  iron,  more 
compassionate  than  men,  transmit  their  thoughts  to  others 
equally  unfortunate.  When  detected,  the  rappers  are  severe- 
ly punished  for  these  infractions  of  the  rule  which  condemns 
them  to  unbroken  silence.  Yet  the  walls,  kind,  faithful 
friends — accomplices  who  never  betray — are  always  there 
inviting  them  again  to  beguile  their  solitude  and  disburden 
their  griefs  by  converse  with  their  tinseen  companions. 

But  it  is  not  possible  to  punish  every  violator  of  the  rule 
of  silence  ;  the  black  dungeon  would  not  hold  them  all,  and 
the  offenders  are  so  numerous  that  the  authorities  are  com- 
pelled to  wink  at  the  offence.  There  is  no  prison  of  the 
Tzar  in  which  communication  by  knockings  does  not  pre- 
vail, and  it  is  more  prevalent  in  the  House  of  Preventative 
Detention  than  in  any  other. 

Number  Thirty-nine  is  quickly  familiarized  with  the 
strange  and  original  life  of  her  prison-house,  and  forms  fast 
friendships  with  people  whose  existence  is  revealed  to  her 
only  by  the  rhythmic  rappings  on  the  wall.  But  community 
in  sutfering  and  similarity  of  disposition  take  the  place  of 
less  abstract  relations,  and  tics  are  sometimes  formed  in  cap- 
tivity which  last  a  lifetime.  It  is  said  that  love  laughs  at 
locksmiths  ;  he  laughs  also  at  gaolers,  and  people  have  been 
known  to  fall  in  love  through  the  medium  of  prison  walls. 
Number  Thirty-nine  is  an  apt  scholar,  and  shares  to  the  full 


THE  HOUSE   OF  PREVENTATIVE   DETENTION.  83 

in  the  sentiments,  the  ideas,  and  the  enthusiasm  of  the  new 
world,  which  the  Tzar's  i:»olice  have  discovered  for  her. 
Never  before  has  tlie  young  girl  lived  so  full  a  life.  Occu- 
pied almost  exclusively  with  her  studies,  she  has  felt  hitherto 
for  the  cause  of  liberty  but  a  silent  sympathy,  accompanied 
by  ideas  more  or  less  vague.  Now  she  understands  every- 
thing. She  has  heard  of  the  sufferings  and  sounded  the 
souls  of  the  prisoners  around  her.  She  sees  how  devoted 
they  are,  how  faithful  and  ardent ;  and  now,  full  of  the  zeal 
of  proselytism,  she  rejoices  in  the  thought  that  she  also  is 
strong  to  suffer  and  to  do. 

Yet  she  is  sad  withal,  for  the  life  histories  of  her  invisible 
brothers  and  sisters  have  been  unfolded  to  her,  and  they  are 
dark  with  suffering  and  sorrow.  They  belong  to  every  order, 
from  the  merely  suspected  to  undoubted  rebels  and  noto- 
rious propagandists. 

Number  Forty,  her  nest-door  neighbor,  is  seriously  com- 
promised. He  was  taken  in  flagrante  delicto,  disguised  as  a 
peasant,  provided  with  a  false  passport,  and  carrying  on  an 
active  revolutionary  propaganda.  He  was  a  rich  landowner 
and  magistrate,  and  will  certainly  be  condemned  to  a  long 
term  of  penal  servitude.  Sixty-eight  can  hope  for  no  milder 
punishment.  A  young  woman  of  high  culture  and  noble 
birth,  she  finished  her  studies  at  the  University  of  Zurich  ; 
then,  returning  to  Eussia,  she  took  a  place  as  factory-girl  in  a 
Moscow  cotton  mill.  Arrested  on  suspicion  of  being  a  revolu- 
tionary emissary,  several  contraband  pamphlets  were  found 
in  her  box,  and  a  workman  was  frightened  by  the  police  into 
confessing  that  he  had  heard  her  read  one  of  them  aloud  to 
some  of  his  comrades.  No  very  heinous  offence,  it  may  be 
thought,  yet  quite  enough  to  ensure  conviction  and,  prob- 
ably, a  long  term  of  penal  servitude.  These,  however,  are 
among  the  more  fortunate.  They  know  the  fate  in  store 
for  them,  an  advantage  denied  to  many  of  their  companions. 
Nineteen,  in  the  cell  below,  for  instance,  is  accused  of  nothing 


84  RUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

in  particular.  The  pamphlet  seized  by  the  police  was  really 
too  frivolous  to  make  its  possession  an  o£Eence.  But  on  the 
pretext  that  he  was  a  friend  of  Number  Forty  they  have 
kcjDt  him  in  prison  two  years  and  a  half.  The  charge  against 
Sixty-three  is  equally  trivial.  He  once  made  a  visit  to  the 
estate  of  a  propagandist,  since  convicted.  But  not  one  of 
the  peasants  with  whom  he  was  confronted  could  testify 
anything  against  him.  Yet  the  procurator  was  "persuaded 
in  his  own  mind"  of  Sixty-three's  guilt,  and  this  is  the 
latter's  third  year  in  prison.*  Though  quite  a  young  man, 
confinement  has  seriously  impaired  his  health.  Xumber 
Twenty-one,  on  the  upper  story,  is  even  worse.  He  suffers 
from  phthisis,  and  the  deadly  disease  is  making  rapid  progress. 
He  was  on  friendly  terms  with  a  celebrated  propagandist,  and 
attended  several  private  Socialist  meetings,  where  politics 
formed  the  subject  of  discussion.  For  two  years  he  has  been 
in  daily  expectation  of  release.  But  when  he  leaves  his 
narrow  cell  it  will  be  for  the  still  narrower  confines  of  the 
tomb,  that  last  and  sure  refuge  of  the  oppressed,  f  AH 
night  through  she  hears  the  stricken  man's  hollow  cough, 
and  her  heart  is  full  of  pity  and  sorrow. 

But  her  neighbor  of  the  right  gave  her  yet  keener  pain, 
even  more  than  pain — horror  and  dismay.  This  neighbor 
was  one  of  her  own  sex  ;  and  so  rapid  and  strange — incoherent 
even — were  her  rappings,  that  it  was  some  time  before 
Thirty-nine  could  understand  them. 

"  Distrust  Forty,"  she  said,  "  he  is  a  spy.  So  is  Twenty- 
one.  They  are  put  there  expressly  to  surprise  our  secrets. 
They  come  into  my  cell  when  I  am  asleep  at  nights.  They 
put  a  pipe  into  my  ear,  and  pump  up  all  my  thoughts  to 
show  them  to  the  procurator." 

The  woman  was  mad.     The  charge  against  her  was  preach- 

*  A  fact.   This  is  precisely  the  case  of  Nicolas  Morozoff  (arrested  1873 
at  Tver). 
■f-  Equally  a  fact.   The  victim  in  this  case  was  Voinoiasezky. 


THE  HOUSE   OF   PREVENTATIVE   DETENTION.  85 

ing  tlie  gospel  of  Socialism.  Like  Sixty-three  she  got  work 
in  a  cotton  mill  and  played  the  part  of  a  factory-girl.  A 
few  days  later,  and  before  she  had  time  to  commit  any  breach 
of  the  law,  she  was  arrested.  But  the  fact  of  her  disguise 
was  regarded  as  proof  of  her  guilt.  Eighteen  months'  sol- 
itary confinement  turned  her  brain,  but  they  still  kept  her 
in  seclusion.  And  from  all  parts  of  the  vast  prison-house 
the  rhythmic  rappings  on  the  wall  brought  equally  heart- 
rending stories  of  suffering  and  sorrow. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

POOE  THIRTT-KIXE. 

AxD  the  examination  ?  And  the  interrogation  ?  "Why 
have  I  forgotten  the  main  point,  and  relegated  the  secondary 
to  the  first  place  ?  my  readers  will  probably  ask. 

Because  in  Russia  juridic  procedure  is  not  the  main  point. 
It  is  secondary  and  accessory.  The  chief  point  is  to  secure 
the  prisoner,  to  keep  him  in  "  durance  vile."  As  for  trying 
him,  examining  the  proofs  against  him,  determining  his 
innocence  or  his  guilt,  these  are  things  about  which  there  is 
no  hurry — they  can  wait. 

Here  is  a  case  in  point,  perfectly  authentic  and  suscepti- 
ble of  fullest  proof,  which  affords  an  excellent  example  of 
Russian  judicial  methods.  In  1874  Mr.  Ponomareff,  a 
student  in  the  Saratov  Seminary,  was  taken  into  custody  on 
a  charge  of  belonging  to  a  secret  society.  Among  the  papers 
of  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  movement,  P.  Voinaralski,  had 
been  found  a  ticket  on  which  was  written  Ponomareff's 
name.  This  was  held  to  be  a  suflBcient  justification  of  his 
arrest.  At  the  interrogatory  the  latter  denied  all  knowledge 
of  the  former,  saying  that  he  had  not  the  least  idea  how 
Voinaralski  became  acquainted  with  his  name.  Persisting 
in  this  denial  he  was  accused  of  obstinacy,  urged  to  confess, 
and  still  proving  recalcitrant,  sent  to  prison  and  advised  to 
**  reflect."  As  he  reflected  there  three  years,  it  cannot  be 
said  that  the  authorities  did  not  give  him  ample  time  to 
consider  both  sides  of  the  question.  Similar  instances  of 
obstinacy  are  far  from  rare  among  political  prisoners.     But 


POOR   THIRTT-lSriNE.  87 

the  richest  part  of  the  affair — the  poiut  of  the  story-— did 
not  come  to  pass  until  11877,  when  Ponomareff,  at  length 
placed  on  his  trial,  retained  Mr.  Stassoff,  a  well-known  St. 
Petersburg  advocate,  for  his  defence.  The  advocate,  natu- 
rally enough,  asked  to  see  the  piece  de  conviction,  the  ticket 
on  which  his  client's  name  was  affirmed  to  be  written.  The 
ticket  was  produced  accordingly,  when  lo  and  behold  !  the 
name  was  not  the  name  of  Ponomareff  at  all.  Owing  to  a 
slight  similarity  in  the  spelling  of  their  cognomens  the 
police  had  mistaken  him  for  somebody  else,  and  arrested  the 
wrong  man  !  So  lax  is  the  administration  of  the  law,  so 
cynically  indifferent  are  the  dispensers  of  the  Tzar's  justice 
to  the  rights  of  the  Tzar's  subjects,  that  it  took  three  years 
— the  time  allowed  Ponomareff  for  reflection — to  rectify  an 
error  that  in  any  other  country  would  have  been  rectified 
within  twenty-four  hours. 

But  let  us  take  up  the  thread  of  our  story. 

The  very  day  of  her  arrest  Thirty-nine  w-as  taken  before 
the  procurator,  from  whom  she  learnt  that  the  visits  she  had 
occasionally  made  to  X.  were  known  to  the  police  ;  and  his 
letters,  which  the  latter  had  seized,  showed  that  their  rela- 
tions were  of  a  somewhat  friendly  character.  The  suspicions 
already  conceived — suspicions  which  had  suggested  the  noc- 
turnal search — were  confirmed  by  the  attempt  of  Thirty- 
nine  to  destroy  her  friend's  letter.  Than  this,  she  found  to 
her  great  relief,  nothing  more  was  known.  All  the  same, 
she  was  roundly  accused  of  belonging  to  the  secret  society 
directed  by  X.,  a  society  having  for  its  object  "the  over- 
throw of  the  existing  order,  subversion  of  property,  religion, 
and  the  family,"  and  so  forth.  These  charges  she  naturally 
denied.  She  was  accused  of  other  offences,  and  many  search- 
ing questions  were  put  touching  her  supposed  connection 
•with  the  revolutionary  movement.  All  were  answered  in 
the  negative. 

"Very  well,"  said  the  procurator  at  length,  "you  will 


88  RUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

have  to  reflect.    Take  Number  Thirty-nine  back  to  her  cell, 
"warder. " 

Thirty-nine  went  back  to  her  cell,  rejoicing  that  she  had 
come  so  well  out  of  the  ordeal,  and  tbat  the  police  had  so 
little  against  her.  Her  spirits  rose,  and  she  was  full  of  hope 
as  to  the  future. 

She  was  allowed  to  reflect  at  her  ease  ;  she  could  not  com- 
plain that  the  even  tenor  of  her  thoughts  was  disturbed  by 
too  many  distractions.  A  whole  week  passed,  a  second,  a 
third.  An  entire  month  elapsed,  and  still  nothing  was  said 
about  another  examination.  The  month  multiplied  by 
three,  by  four,  by  six.  Half  a  year  went  by  without  any 
break  in  the  monotony  of  her  life,  a  life  passed  within  the 
four  walls  of  her  little  box,  from  which  she  emerged  but 
once  a  day  for  a  few  minutes'  lonely  walk  in  another  box, 
differing  from  the  first  only  in  being  open  to  the  sky — a  com- 
partment of  the  court  divided  into  squares,  each  enclosed 
within  high  walls  for  the  use  of  prisoners  kept  in  solitary 
confinement.  No  wonder  the  poor  girl  began  to  be  some- 
what weary  with  the  insupportable  sameness  of  her  exist- 
ence ;  and  wondered,  not  without  anxiety,  what  would  be 
the  end. 

But  towards  the  end  of  the  seventh  month,  when  she  has 
almost  abandoned  hope,  she  is  called  before  the  procurator 
to  undergo  still  another  questioning.  Surely  they  will  let 
her  go  now  ! 

At  any  rate,  they  did  not  keep  her  long  in  suspense.  The 
examination  was  brief  and  sharp. 

"  Have  you  reflected  ?  " 

"  Yes,  I  have  reflected. " 

**Have  you  anything  to  add  to  your  previous  depositions  ?" 

*' Nothing.-*' 

"Indeed  !  Go  back  to  your  cell,  then.  I  will  make  you 
rot  there." 

"  I  will  make  you  rot  there. "     This  is  the  stereotyped  ex- 


POOR  THIRTY-NINE.  89 

pression  ;  an  expression  which  few  political  prisoners  have 
not  repeatedly  heard. 

Thirty-nine  does  not  this  time  return  to  her  cell  with  a 
light  heart  and  a  beaming  countenance,  as  she  had  done 
after  her  first  interrogatory.  She  feels  crushed  and  con- 
fused, weighed  down  by  a  strange,  almost  agonizing  sense  of 
apprehension  and  despair,  whicii  at  first  she  is  unable  either 
to  define  to  herself  or  to  understand.  What  can  it  be  ? 
whence  came  it  ?  Ah,  that  snake  of  a  procurator  !  And 
then  she  remembers  the  words  with  which  he  had  dismissed 
her  to  her  cell.  He  would  let  her  rot  there  !  And  there 
were  proofs  all  around  her  that  he  did  not  threaten  in  vain. 

The  maniac  in  number  thirty- eight  is  knocking  furiously 
at  the  wall. 

"  Wretched  traitress,  you  have  been  to  denounce  me. 
Here  is  a  man  with  a  sack  of  hungry  rats  that  he  is  bringing 
to  devour  me.     Coward,  coward,  that  you  are  ! " 

The  poor  lunatic  is  in  one  of  her  paroxysms, 

A  horrible  fear  takes  possession  of  the  prisoner's  mind. 

'^Dreadful  !  dreadful  !"  she  cries  ;  "shall  I  one  day  be- 
come like  her  ?" 

The  montlis  go  and  come,  as  if  time  and  memory  were 
not ;  the  seasons  follow  in  their  unvarying  round.  It  was 
autumn  when  she  lost  her  liberty,  tlien  another  autumn 
came  and  went,  and  now  a  third  is  passing  away — yet  free- 
dom returns  not ;  it  seems  as  far  off  as  ever.  ^  Poor  Thirty- 
nine  still  languishes  in  her  cell,  so  wofirlly  changed  by  con- 
finement and  solitude  that  even  her  own  mother  would 
hardly  know  her. 

At  the  end  of  her  second  year  of  prison  the  captive  under- 
went a  terrible  crisis.  Her  wretched  life  within  the  four 
walls  of  the  diminutive  cell,  the  frightful  sameness — no 
change,  no  occupation,  no  society,  no  anything — became  ut- 
terly intolerable.  The  yearning  for  air,  movement,  liberty, 
grew  intense,  almost  to  mania.   On  waking  in  a  morning  she 


90  EUSSIA    UNDER   THE   TZAES. 

felt  that  unless  sbe  was  released  that  very  day,  she  would  die. 
And  she  had  nothing  before  her  but  prison — always  prison  ! 

She  bombarded  the  procurator  with  letters,  entreating 
him  to  order  her  into  exile,  to  send  her  to  Siberian  mines, 
to  sentence  her  to  penal  servitude.  She  would  go  anywhere 
or  do  anything  to  escape  from  her  living  tomb. 

The  procurator  came  several  times  to  her  cell. 

*'  Have  you  am-thing  to  add  to  your  depositions  ?  "  was  his 
invariable  question  on  these  occasions.  "K'o."  "Very 
well,  I  must  still  leave  you  to  your  reflections." 

She  begged  her  mother  to  try  to  get  her  enlarged  on 
bail,  pending  her  trial.  But  her  parents  could  in  no  way 
help  her.  All  their  applications  received  the  same  response  : 
*'  Your  daughter  is  obstinately  impenitent.  Advise  her  to 
think  better  of  it.     TTe  can  do  nothing  for  you." 

She  fell  into  utter  despair.  Dark  ideas  of  suicide  began 
to  haunt  her  brain.  More  than  once  she  thought  she  was 
going  mad.  From  these  calamities  her  physical  wealaiess, 
by  lessening  the  intensity  of  her  life  and  numbing  her  sus- 
ceptibility to  suffering,  alone  saved  her.  ( This  is  why  in 
Eussian  prisons  the  young  and  vigorous  succumb  the  soonest. 
The  feeble  and  delicate  have  a  better  chance.) 

TVant  of  air  and  exercise,  and  insufficient  and  unsuitable 
food,  have  produced  their  natural  effect  on  that  young  and 
undeveloped  organism.  The  bloom  of  health  has  long  since 
vanished  from  those  cheeks,  once  so  fresh  and  fair.  Her 
complexion  has  assumed  that  yellow-green  tint  peculiar  to 
eickly  plants  and  to  the  young  who  linger  long  in  captivity. 
But  she  is  not  thin  ;  on  the  contrary,  her  face  is  swollen  and 
puffy,  the  result  of  softening  of  the  tissues,  produced  by 
seclusion  and  inaction.  All  her  movements  are  slow,  indo- 
lent, and  automatic.  She  looks  six  years  older.  She  can 
remain  half  an  hour  in  the  same  position,  with  her  eyes 
fixed  on  the  same  object,  as  if  she  were  buried  in  deep 
thought.    But  she  is  not,  for  her  brain  has  become  as  flabby 


POOR   THIRTY-JTINE.  91 

as  her  muscles.  At  first  she  read  greedily  all  the  books 
which  the  prison  authorities  allowed  her  mother  to  bring 
her.  Now,  however,  she  finds  concentration  of  thought  so 
difficult  that  she  cannot  read  two  consecutive  pages  without 
extreme  fatigue.  She  passes  the  greater  part  of  her  time  in 
a  state  of  torpor,  in  heavy  drowsiness,  moral  and  physical. 
She  has  no  desire  to  talk  or  lay  plans.  What  can  it  profit  to 
talk  to  the  air,  to  speak  of  the  future  when  you  are  without 
liope  ?  The  early  friends  of  her  imprisonment,  the  kindly 
and  responsive  walls  to  whom  she  had  once  imparted  her 
innermost  thoughts,  are  almost  abandoned.  She  rarely  goesi 
near  them.  And  the  walls  themselves,  with  the  delicacy 
of  true  friendship,  understand  her  silence  and  respect  her 
sorrow  and  despair.  From  time  to  time  they  speak  softly 
words  of  consolation.  But  receiving  no  answer  they  desist, 
lest  they  sliould  annoy  her  with  what,  in  her  hopaless  con- 
dition, might  seem  like  mocking  phrases.  Yet  they  ceased 
not  to  think  of  her  and  to  watch  over  her  with  loving  care. 

"It  is  not  well  with  Thirty-nine,"  said  one  wall  to  an- 
other. 

From  wall  to  wall,  from  stone  to  stone,  the  evil  tidings 
run,  and  the  entire  building  vibrates  sadly  in  response — 

"Something  must  be  done  for  poor  Thirty-nine." 

The  voice  of  the  stones  at  last  finds  expression  in  human 
voices.  The  prisoners  beg  the  warders  to  send  a  doctor 
to  Thirty-nine. 

The  prayer  is  heard  and  the  doctor  comes,  accompanied 
by  a  policeman.  Thirty-nine  is  examined.  It  is  quite  an 
ordinary  case — prison  anemia.  The  lungs  are  severely 
affected  !  the  nervous  system  is  thoroughly  deranged.  In  a 
word,  she  is  suffering  from  prison  sickness. 

This  physician  was  young  at  his  business  as  a  jail  doctor. 
He  had  some  humanitarian  ideas,  and  his  heart  was  open 
to  pity.  But  he  was  so  accustomed  to  the  sight  of  suffering 
that  he  could  contemplate  it  unmoved.     To  show  over-much 


92  RUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

compassion  for  a  political  prisoner,  moreover,  might  erpose 
him  to  the  suspicion  of  being  a  secret  sympathizer  with  the 
disaffected. 

"  There  is  nothing  serious  the  matter,"  said  the  man  of 
physic. 

The  stones  learnt  the  verdict  in  mournful  silence.  Oh, 
how  terrible  are  the  suffei-ings,  how  unutterable  the  sorrows, 
these  walls  have  witnessed  !  But  they  can  still  feel,  and 
when  the  doom  is  pronounced  they  sigh  :  "  Poor  Thirty- 
nine  !     What  will  become  of  poor  Thirty-nine  ?  " 

Yes,  what  will  become  of  poor  Thirty-nine  ?  Oh,  there 
are  many  alternatives  for  her,  all  equally  possible.  If  by 
some  shock  her  vital  energy  should  be  awakened  and  the 
acute  crisis  return,  she  m.ay  strangle  herself  with  a  pocket 
handkerchief  or  a  piece  of  linen,  like  Kroutikoff  ;  or  poison 
herself,  like  Stransky  ;  cut  her  throat  with  a  pair  of  scis- 
sors, like  Zapolsky,  or,  in  default  of  other  means,  with  a  bit 
of  broken  glass,  as  Leontovitch  did  at  Moscow,  and  Bogo- 
moloff  in  the  Preventative  prison  of  St.  Petersburg.  She 
may  go  mad,  like  Betia  Kamenskaia,  who  was  kept  in  prison 
long  after  her  lunacy  had  declared  itself,  and  only  released 
when  her  condition  was  utterly  desperate,  to  poison  herself 
shortly  afterwards  in  a  fit  of  suicidal  mania.  If  she  con- 
tinues to  fade  she  will  die  of  phthisis,  like  Lvoff,  Trutkov- 
sky,  Lermontoff,  and  dozens  of  others.  Relenting  too  late, 
her  custodians  may  release  her  provisionally,  but  only  to  let 
her  die  outside  the  prison,  as  they  did  with  Ustugeaninoff, 
Tchernischeff,  Nokoff,  Mahaeff,  and  many  others,  all  of 
whom  fell  victims  to  phthisis  a  few  days  after  they  were 
provisionally  enlarged.  If,  however,  by  reason  of  abnormal 
strength  of  character,  vigor  of  constitution,  or  other  excep- 
tional circumstances,  she  should  survive  until  the  day  of 
trial,  her  judges,  out  of  consideration  for  her  tender  age  and 
long  imprisonment,  may  let  her  end  her  days  in  Siberia  ! 

All  these    eventualities  are   equally  possible  for  Thirty- 


POOR  THIRTY-KINE.  93 

nine.  Which  will  come  to  pass  none  can  tell.  The  fates 
must  decide.  For  as  I  propose  in  this  book  to  say  nothing 
doubtful  or  uncertain,  I  will  hazard  no  conjectures  as  to  the 
issue.  So  let  us  drop  the  curtain  and  say  farewell  to  Num- 
ber Thirty-nine. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

THE   tzar's   justice. 

As  I  have  just  observed  it  is  impossible  to  foretell  categori- 
cally the  fate  in  store  for  any  individual  prisoner  of  the  Tzar. 
Yet,  by  making  a  calculation  of  probabilities,  according  to 
the  rules  admitted  by  statistical  science  and  based  on  indis- 
putable facts,  we  may  form  a  fairly  accurate  idea  of  what  is 
likely  to  befall  any  of  these  unfortunates  in  whom  we  may 
happen  to  take  an  interest. 

In  the  trial  of  the  193 — one  of  the  principal  trials  of  the 
period  in  question — the  imperial  procurator  Gelechovskij 
said,  in  his  requisition,  that  of  the  entire  number  there  were 
no  more  than  twenty  who  deserved  punishment.  Neverthe- 
less, of  tlie  193  accused  persons  no  fewer  than  seventy-three 
committed  suicide  and  went  mad  during  the  four  years  that 
the  examination  lasted.  Hence,  almost  four  times  as  many 
as  the  public  prosecutor  himself  deemed  worthy  of  punish- 
ment were  either  killed  by  inches  or  visited  with  a  doom 
more  terrible  than  death. 

The  193,  moreover,  did  not  include  all  on  whom  the 
police  laid  hands  and  brought  before  the  tribunal.  Tbe 
arrests  and  imprisonments  in  connection  with  the  trial  were 
at  least  seven  times  greater,  reaching  a  total  of  1400,  of 
whom,  however,  700  were  set  free  after  a  few  weeks'  or  a 
few  months'  detention.  The  other  TOO  were  kept  under 
lock  and  key  for  periods  varying  from  one  year  to  four  years, 
and  appeared  at  the  trial  either  as  principals  or  witnesses, 
the  latter  being  of  course  the  more  numerous.     The  senate. 


THE  tzar's  justice.  95 

by  whom  the  193  were  tried,  pronounced  two  different  sets . 
of  sentences — the  one  nominal,  and  of  extreme  severity,  the  I 
other  milder,  real,  and  intending,  in  the  form  of  a  recom- 
mendation to  mercy,  to  be  laid  before  the  Tzar  and  by  him 
sanctioned  and  confirmed.     One  was  sentenced  to  penal  ser- 
yitudc,  24  were  sentenced  to  exile  in  Siberia,  15  to  simple 
exile,  and  153  were  acquitted.     I  call  the  latter  the  real  sen- 
tences, because  recommendations  to  mercy,  above  all,  when' 
coming  from  an   exceptional   tribunal   composed  of  high 
magistrates,  are,  as  a  rule,  never  refused  by  the  Emperor.  \ 
But,  less  merciful  than  his  own  judges,  Alexander  declined 
to  act  on  their  recommendation,  and  ordered  the  sentences, 
passed  by  the  senate  in  the  belief  that  they  would  not  be 
enforced,  to  be  carried  out  in  all  their  rigor.     These  sen- 
tences— thirteen  of  the  193  only  being  sentenced  to  penal 
servitude — amounted    in   the  aggregate   to  seventy  years' 
penal  servitude,  the  heaviest  penalty — inflicted  in  one  case  i 
alone — being  ten  years'  penal  servitude.* 

Now  if  we  reckon,  on  the  other  hand,  but  two  years  of 
preliminary  detention  for  each  of  the  700  persons  originally 
implicated  in  the  prosecution — and  this  is  decidedly  below 
the  mark — we  get  a  total  of  1400  years — fourteen  centuries 
of  a  punishment  far  more  fatal  to  its  victims  than  the  penal 
servitude  of  Siberia. 

Thus  the  pains  inflicted  by  the  police  were  twenty  times 
greater,  for  the  same  offence,  than  the  penalties  imposed  by 
the  tribunal,  albeit  the  latter  went  to  the  utmost  limit 
allowed  by  the  draconian  code  of  Russia.  In  other  words, 
to  obtain  evidence  for  the  conviction  of  one  man,  the  same 
punishment  meted  ont  to  him  was  inflicted  on  nineteen  in- 
nocent persons.      This,   without  taking   into   account   the 

*  Exclusive  of  the  700  who  were  released  in  the  course  of  the  first  \ 
year,  and  taking  no  account  either  of  the  twenty  sentences  of  police 
supervision  inflicted  by  the  tribunal,  or  of  the  sentences  to  exile  after-  I 
wards  inflicted  by  the  police. 


96  EUSSIA   U]SrDER  THE  TZARS. 

seventj-tLree  unfortunates  that  died  during  the  examination, 
and  whose  deaths  in  at  least  seventy  instances  were  directly 
traceable  to  the  effects  of  their  preventative  detention, 
passed,  be  it  remembered,  in  the  solitary,  soul-destroying 
confinement  which  either  maddens  or  kills.  That  these 
seventy-three  persons  were  nearly  every  one  virtually  mur- 
dered is  proved  by  the  fact  that,  according  to  a  calculation 
based  on  the  mean  mortality  of  St.  Petersburg,  and  taking 
into  consideration  their  ages,  only  two  or  three  of  them 
ought  to  have  died  during  the  period  in  question. 
Such  are  the  methods  of  the  Russian  Inquisition. 


( 


CHAPTER  XV. 

THE    QUESTION". 

The  system  described  in  the  foregoing  chapter  may  be 
called  the  slow  and  quiet  system.  The  "impenitent"  are 
left  to  rot  peaceably  in  their  cells,  in  the  expectation  that 
these  fruits  of  official  zeal,  which  are  still  green,  will  after  a 
period  of  rotting  become  more  pervious  to  the  inquisitors' 
pincers,  and  admit  of  the  extraction  of  their  hidden  grains. 

Yet,  despite  its  evident  advantages,  this  system  has  one 
great  drawback.  It  requires  time  and  patience.  So  long  as 
Nihilists  did  not  go  from  words  to  acts,  and  limited  their 
proceedings  to  a  peaceful  propaganda,  there  was  no  need 
for  huny.  The  agitation  was  not  feared.  From  time  to 
time  suspected  propagandists  were  caught  here  and  there, 
and,  after  putting  them  in  prison,  their  captors  awaited  with 
folded  arms  in  the  generally  vain  hope  of  revelations  which 
might  enable  them  to  get  up  a  monster  indictment  for  con- 
spiracy. 

But  when  the  revolutionists,  weary  of  merely  passive 
resistance,  took  up  arms  and  gave  back  blow  for  blow,  the 
authorities  could  temporize  no  longer.  With  a  view  to 
guard  against  the  terrible  reprisals  which  the  police  had 
reason  to  believe  were  being  prepared  by  the  Nihilists  out- 
side, the  police  deemed  it  imperative  to  obtain  from  the 
prisoners  the  fullest  information  in  the  shortest  possible 
time.  In  these  circumstances,  the  slow  process  of  letting 
prisoners  rot  until  one  or  other  might  think  fit  to  reveal  did 
not  answer.  To  obtain  prompt  results  it  was  needful  to  in- 
tensify their  sufferings.  From  this  necessity  the  police  did 
5 


98  KUSSIA   UKDER  THE   TZARS. 

not  shrink.  The  rigors  of  preventative  detention  were 
augmented.  With  cruel  craft  they  struck  first  at  the  most 
sensitive  point.  The  isolation  of  the  prisoners  was  made 
absolute  and  complete.  Every  indulgence  was  withdrawn  ; 
it  became  the  isolation  of  the  tomb.  The  House  of  De- 
tention, with  its  comparatively  mild  discipline,  was  reserved 
for  prisoners  the  least  compromised.  Serious  cases  were 
relegated  to  that  vast  and  gloomy  fortress,  where  the  police 
can  work  their  will  on  their  victims,  unchecked  and  unseen. 
In  towns  so  fortunate  as  not  to  possess  a  sufficiency  of 
suitable  dungeons,  temporary  lock-ups  were  improvised. 
Political  prisoners  were  hindered  from  communicating  with 
each  other  by  placing  common  gaol  birds  in  the  inter- 
vening cells.  Their  places  were  sometimes  taken  by 
gendarmes  and  spies,  who,  knowing  the  language  of  the 
walls,  acted  as  eavesdroj^pers,  and  even  as  agents  provo- 
cateurs. No  means  were  spared  to  break  the  spirits  of  im- 
penitent suspects  and  render  their  lives  intolerable.  They 
could  neither  write  nor  receive  letters,  were  forbidden  to  see 
their  friends,  and  deprived  of  pens,  paper,  and  books,  a  dep- 
rivation which  to  an  intellectually  active  man  is  alone  dire 
torture.  On  the  other  hand,  signs  of  yielding  were  warmly 
encouraged,  and  on  the  pusillanimous  who  made  depositions 

^  favors  wore  showered  with  lavish  hands. 

The  cruelties  inflicted  on  the  obstinate — and  most  of  the 
prisoners  were  obstinate— gave  rise  to  a  frightful  struggle, 
the  so-called  strike  by  famine.  Plaving  no  other  means  of 
asserting  their  rights  against  their  relentless  oppressors,  the 
prisoners  refused  to  e:it.  In  some  instances  they  went  wi^th- 
out  food  seven,  eight,  and  even  ten  days,  until  they  were  on 
the  verge  of  death,  when  the  police,  afraid  of  losing  their 
victims  altogether,  would  promise  concessions,  such  as  the 
privilege  of  reading  and  writing,  taking  their  daily  walk  in 
common,  and  the  rest— promises,  however,  which  were  often 

\  shamelessly  broken.     Olga  Lioubatovich  had  to  refuse  food 


THE   QUESTION?'.  99 

for  seyen  consecutive  days  before  she  could  obtain  a  needle , 
and  thread  wherewith  to  vary    the  monotony  of    her    life' 
with    some    womanly   work.     There    is    not    a    prison    in  I 
which  the  hunger-strikes  have  not  taken  place  three  or  four 
times. 

But  the  method  of  examination  is  that  into  which  the 
most  subtle  refinements  have  been  introduced.  Beforetime 
the  resources  of  the  inquisitors  were  limited  to  somewhat 
remote  threats — Siberian  exile,  hard  labor  in  dismal  mines, 
solitary  confinement,  indefinite  preliminary  detention — 
penalties  severe  enough,  in  all  conscience,  yet,  as  was 
thought,  not  sufficiently  striking  in  their  effect  on  the  im- 
agination. Xow  it  is  very  different.  The  Tzar's  procurator 
can  hold  before  the  eyes  of  his  prisoner  the  spectre  of  the 
gallows.  He  tries  to  compel  confessions  by  threats  of  death, 
which  are  much  more  terrifying  than  threats  of  transportation 
and  penal  servitude.  The  horror  of  capital  punishment  for 
puerile  offences  lends  peculiar  efficacy  to  this  method  of 
extortinar  admissions. 

*'  You  know  that  I  can  hang  you,*'  Strelnikoff  was  in  the 
habit  of  saying  to  his  victims.  "  The  military  tribunal  will 
do  whatever  I  direct." 

The  prisoner  knew  it  only  too  well. 

"Very  well,  then,"  would  continue  the  public  prosecutor, 
"confess,  or  in  a  week  you  will  be  hanged  like  a  dog." 

Falsehood  and  perfidy  were  likewise  resorted  to  without 
scruple. 

''  So  you  won't  peach.  Very  well ;  you  are  determined 
to  sacrifice  yourself  in  order  to  save  men  who  have  admitted 
their  guilt  and  betrayed  you  into  the  bargain.     Read  this." 

Whereupon  the  inquisitor  would  show  the  prisoner  a 
counterfeit  deposition — counterfeit  from  beginning  to  one), 
with  bogus  signatures  and  forged  evidence — containing  all 
the  things  which  Strelnikoff  wanted  the  prisoner  to 
confess. 


100  RUSSIA    UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

He  practised  at  times  other  and,  if  possible,  still  more 
cruel  devices.  After  letting  a  young  husband  catch  a 
glimpse  of  his  wife,  also  a  prisoner,  pale,  worn,  and  sick,  he 
would  say — 

*'  You  have  only  to  cease  your  useless  denials,  and  both  of 
you  shall  be  set  at  liberty." 

There  were  occasions  on  which  this  Torquemada  of 
despotism  would  blend  cruelty,  deception,  and  lying  in  a 
cynical  and  ingenious  combination. 

"  I  do  not  want  to  harm  you.     I  am  a  father  myself.     I 

have  a  young  daughter  like  you,"  he  said  to  Miss  P ,  in 

Kieff,  in  1881.  "  I  am  touched  by  your  youth.  Let  me 
save  you  from  certain  death." 

The  young  girl  still  refused  to  confess. 

On  this  Strelnikoff  had  her  father  led  in,  an  old  grey- 
haired  man,  devotedly  attached  to  his  daughter,  and 
described  to  him  in  highly  colored  language  the  peril  of  her 
position,  and  the  terrible  charges  that  hung  over  her  head. 

"  She  will  die,  die  ignominiously  in  the  flower  of  her 
youth,"  he  exclaimed.  "  Nothing  but  confession  and  sin- 
cere repentance  can  save  her.  But  I  am  powerless  to  move 
her.  You  try.  Beg  of  her,  implore  her — on  your  knees,  if 
necessary. " 

And  the  poor  old  man,  distracted  with  terror,  sinks  weep- 
ing before  his  child,  and  beseeches  her  not  to  bring  his  grey 
hairs  with  sorrow  to  the  grave  ;  and  the  child,  shutting  her 
eyes  that  she  may  not  behold  the  terrible  sight,  tries  to 
flee. 

Though  tragical  enough  for  the  victims,  this  was  a  pure 
comedy  contrived  by  Sfcrelnikoff,  who  had  not  in  his  posses- 
sion a  shred  of  evidence  against  Miss  P ;  a  stratagem 

to  draw  from  her  damaging  admissions. 

A  man  who  is  not  very  clever,  especially  a  young  man, 
may  easily  fall  into  one  of  these  perfidiously  laid  traps,  and 
let  a  word  or  a  detail  more  than  he  intended  inadvertently 


THE   QUESTION".  101 

escape  liim.  So  soon  as  the  mistake  is  perceived,  it  becomes 
a  cause  of  burning  remorse.  It  may  be  a  mere  bagatelle,  a 
nothing.  But  that  matters  not ;  the  overwrought  imagina- 
tion, with  its  monstrous  exaggerations  and  fantastic  appre- 
hensions of  possible  consequences,  makes  everything  tend  to 
the  worst.  The  mind  of  the  unhappy  prisoner  is  haunted  by 
the  fear  that  he  has  ruined  his  friends  and  betrayed  his 
cause.  "We  must  read  the  autobiography  of  Khudiakoff,  a 
pure-minded  aud  honest  man,  who  behaved  with  the  great- 
est firmness  in  the  Karakosoii  trial,  if  we  would  understand 
the  hell  that  such  an  apprehension  as  this  may  create  for  a 
sensitive  and  conscientious  nature.  Nothing  can  compare 
with  suffering  so  horrible,  self-torture  so  intense — suffering, 
moreover,  which,  on  account  of  the  complete  isolation  of 
the  prisoner,  may  last  for  months.  In  the  deadly  loneliness 
to  which  he  is  doomed  there  is  no  kindly  soul  to  offer  him 
a  word  of  consolation,  no  thoughtful  friend  to  point  out  the 
insignificance  of  the  mistake  which  he  has  committed. 

It  may,  without  exaggeration,  be  affirmed  that  the  rava- 
ges wrought  of  late  years  among  Russian  political  prisoners 
are  due  even  more  to  their  infamous  method  of  juridic  pro- 
cedure than  to  the  cruel  system  of  preventative  detention, 
the  brutality  of  jailers,  or  the  privations  to  which  their  vic- 
tims are  exposed. 

Strelnikoff  is  the  general  type  of  the  modern  inquisitor, 
albeit  the  type  necessarily  varies  according  to  the  predomi- 
nance of  one  or  other  of  the  characteristics  of  which  it  is 
composed.  Paniutin,  once  aide-de-camp  to  Mouravieff  the 
hangman,  afterwards  the  right  hand  of  Todleben,  hangman 
of  the  Souths,  is  the  type  of  the  ferocious  inquisitor.  The 
leading  features  of  his  methods  were  violence  and  brutality. 
"I  may  have  to  hang  five  hundred  and  exile  five  thousand, 
but  I  will  purge  the  city."     These  were  his  very  words. 

The  celebrated  Soudeikin — who  was  so  well  known  that  I 
need  say  no  more  about  him — is  the  refined  inquisitor  of  the 


102  EUSSIA    UNDER  THE   TZARS. 

Judas  type,  the  type  most  prevalent  at  St.  Petersburg,  and 
whom  the  highest  dignitaries  are  not  ashamed  to  take  some- 
times as  their  model. 

For  instance,  the  Dictator  Loris  MelikofE  presented  him- 
self in  person  to  prisoners  condemned  to  death,  the  day  after 
trial,  and  under  threat  of  confirming  the  sentence,  and  with 
the  rope  almost  literally  in  his  hands,  demanded  names  and 
betrayals.  Yet  the  General  had  in  his  possession  commuta- 
tions of  their  sentences  signed  by  the  Emperor. 

I  will  not  bewilder  and  shock  my  readers  with  further  de- 
scription of  the  different  species  of  this  family  of  reptiles. 
I  shall  only  observe  in  conclusion  that  the  judicial  code  of 
Kussia,  repeating  the  codes  of  neighboring  countries,  runs 
thus  :  "The  object  of  preliminary  detention  is  to  prevent 
the  accused  from  evading  examination  and  judgment."  An- 
other paragraph  of  the  same  code  interdicts  the  use  of 
"  threats,  cajoleries,  promises,  and  all  other  like  means  for 
prevailing  on  the  accused  to  give  evidence."  And  it  is  fur- 
ther laid  down  that  in  the  event  of  the  examining  judge 
having  recourse  to  such  means  the  depositions  shall  be  null 
and  void. 

This,  as  mil  be  seen,  is  the  very  antithesis  of  the  practice 
with  regard  to  political  prosecutions.  Here  the  system  of 
the  inquisition  is  in  full  force.  The  Government  having 
decided  that  avowals  and  revelations  are  necessary  for  its 
own  protection,  stops  at  nothing  to  obtain  them.  In  its 
eagerness  for  useful  information,  it  neither  heeds  the  suffer- 
ings of  the  innocent  nor  respects  the  laws  itself  has  ordained. 
The  examination  designed  for  the  furtherance  of  justice  has 
become  a  system  of  moral  torture  and  physical  pain  ;  and 
preventative  detention  an  expedient  for  rendering  it  impos- 
sible for  suspected  persons  to  escape  these  new  substitutes 
for  the  thumbscrew  and  the  rack. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

POLITICAL  TRIALS. 

'•'  But  "we  must  nuish,  my  dear  sir.  We  cannot  let  a  pre- 
liminary exaniination  last  ten  years.  It  will  become  a  scan- 
dal. Foreign  papers  are  beginning  to  make  a  noise  about  it. 
The  Emperor  is  dissatisfied.  Do  the  best  you  can,  but  in 
any  case  see  that  your  requisition  is  ready  at  the  latest  in 
two  months." 

These  words  were  addressed  by  the  minister  to  the  public 
procurator  at  an  early  stage  of  the  revolutionary  movement. 

A  little  later  a  general — satrap  of  his  district — spoke  as 
follows  : 

"  The  Court  is  quite  furious  about  the  last  attempt  of 
these  cursed  Nihilists.  We  must  let  them  see  that  we  mean 
to  have  an  eye  for  an  eye.  Fudge  a  trial  for  two  weeks  hence. 
We  must  strike  the  iron  while  it  is  hot. " 

And  the  procurator,  fired  by  ambition  and  a  wish  to  be 
well  thought  of  in  high  quarters,  did  ^'get  up  "  a  trial.  Tiie 
merit  of  a  public  prosecutor,  it  may  be  well  to  explain,  is 
always  estimated  by  the  magnitude  of  his  prosecutions  and 
the  complexity  of  the  plots  which  he  discovers  and  exposes. 
It  seldom  happens,  however,  that  in  cases  of  supposed  con- 
spiracy the  procurator  can  obtain  sufficient  evidence  to  con- 
vict justly  those  whom  he  suspects  and  has  decided  to  arraign. 
But  that  matters  little.  He  treats  conjectures  as  certainties, 
suspicions  as  evidence,  personal  friendships  as  proofs  of  affil- 
iation, visits  of  courtesy  as  proofs  of  complicity  in  the  su))- 
posed  plot.  In  a  word,  the  trial  is  "fudged  up."  It  is 
sometimes  not  unlike  a  game  of  cross  purposes  and  crooked 


104  RUSSIA   r2«DER   THE   TZARS. 

answers.  People  who  have  never  met  in  their  lives  before 
are  accused  of  belonging  to  the  same  secret  society,  the  of- 
fence of  one  person  is  attributed  to  another  ;  a  man  is  charged 
with  instigating  an  act  which  he  did  his  best  to  prevent. 
But  these  are  trifling  errors,  unworthy  of  serious  attention. 
The  indictment  was  drawn  at  haphazard  and  by  fits  and 
starts.  The  main  point  is  that  a  sufficient  number  of  -per- 
sons,  supposed  to  be  implicated  in  the  same  diabolical  con- 
spiracy, havmg  been  got  together  they  can  be  tried  in  com- 
mon. 

And  the  tribunal  before  which  they  are  brought,  what  is 
it,  how  does  it  work  ?  English  readers  of  a  judicial  turn  of 
mind  may  be  desirous  of  knowing  how  a  court  for  the  trial 
of  political  offences  is  composed  in  Eussia.  I  will  try  to 
satisfy  them,  but  before  doing  so  I  must  observe  that  it  is 
merely  a  question  of  curiosity,  and  that  the  subject  possesses 
no  more  than  an  academic  interest.  In  a  country  like  Eus- 
sia, where  the  authorities  can  do  absolutely  what  they  please 
■with  a  man,  after  as  well  as  before  judgment,  the  way  in 
which  trials  are  conducted  becomes  a  matter  of  secondaiy 
importance.  If  the  history  of  Eussian  political  tribunals  be 
really  worthy  of  attention,  it  is  as  showing  the  character  of 
the  Government,  as  an  illustration  of  its  pusillanimity,  of 
its  lack  of  confidence  in  its  own  functionaries,  and,  still  more, 
of  the  contemptuous  disregard  which,  at  the  slightest  awaken- 
ing of  its  suspicious  timidity,  it  displays  for  the  miserable 
thing  that  in  Eussia  bears  the  name  of  law. 

The  Nechaeff  case  (September,  1871),  the  first  after  the 
promulgation  of  the  new  judicial  regulations,  was  the  only 
one  tried — not  by  a  jury,  that  the  Government  could  not 
think  of,  but  by  the  regular  courts,  before  magistrates  of 
the  Crown  performing  judicial  functions  under  ordinary 
conditions.  It  was,  moreover,  the  only  political  trial  as  to 
which  the  privileges  allowed  by  the  law  of  publicity  were 
not  more  restrained  than  is  usual.     The  court-house  was 


POLITICAL  TRIALS.  105 

open  to  the  public  as  in  other  trials,  and  the  papers  were 
permitted  to  publish  reports  of  the  proceedings,  under  tho 
general  conditions  imposed  by  the  censorship  of  the  press.  I 
This  unfortunate  case  was  not  of  the  class  which  appeals 
to  the  sympathy  either  of  society  or  of  youth.  The  tribunal 
did  uot  err  on  the  side  of  leniency,  but  it  acquitted  those  of  ; 
the  accused  against  whom  there  was  really  no  evidence,  and  ' 
it  treated  them  with  too  much  consideration,  allowed  them 
too  much  liberty  in  the  conduct  of  their  defence.  Moreover 
the  president,  in  addressing,  after  the  verdict,  the  prisoners 
whose  guilt  had  not  been  proven,  reminded  these  reprobates 
that,  being  acquitted,  they  were  now  in  the  same  position  as 
all  other  honest  citizens.  Mr.  Katkoff,  albeit  he  was  then  far 
from  being  all  that  he  has  since  become,  protested  that  this 
was  the  prostitution  of  justice  and  the  perversion  of  power. 
The  Minister  of  Justice,  Count  Pahlen,  was  beside  himself 
with  rage,  and  a  few  months  later  (1872)  appeared  a  "  law  " 
withdrawing  political  cases  from  the  jurisdiction  of  the  or- 
dinary tribunals  and  placing  at  the  same  time  considerable 
restrictions  on  reports  of  political  trials.  It  was  ordained 
that  political  cases  should  henceforth  be  judged  by  special 
tribunals,  created  for  the  purpose,  under  the  designation 
of  Particular  Senatorial  Chambers.  A  number  of  senators, 
named  by  the  Emperor,  ad  hoc,  formed  the  nucleus.  That 
the  constitution  of  the  new  court  might  not  be  too  bureau- 
cratic, there  were  added  to  it  so-called  representatives  of  tho- 
three  orders — nobility,  third  estate,  and  peasants.  These 
representatives  were  chosen  by  the  Government  for  each 
trial  from  among  the  marshals  of  the  nobility,  the  mayors 
of  towns,  and  the  starschina  (managers)  of  rural  communes 
througiiout  the  empire.  On  the  first  trial  which  took  place 
after  the  introduction  of  the  new  law,  there  sat  with  tho 
three  senators  the  marshal  of  the  nobility  of  Tchernigoflf,  tho 
,  mayor  of  Odessa,  and  the  starschina  of  Gatschino.  Thus,  \ 
in  order  to  find  three  representatives  to  whom  he  could  com- 
5* 


106  RUSSIA   UKDER  THE   TZAES. 

mit  this  delicate  charge,  the  lyux-eyed  Minister  was  con- 
strained to  search  the  entire  region  between  the  Euxine  and 
the  Baltic.     The  upshot  showed  that  Count  Pahlen  had  not 
labored  in  vain.     He  made  a  choice  which  did  credit  to  his 
I  discernment.     The  so-called    representatives    of  the  three 
'  orders  represented,  in  reality,  nothing  but   the  Minister's 
wishes.     Their  docility  was  admirable.     The  representative 
of.    the  peasantry   distinguished    himself  by  a  zeal  which 
might  be  called  excessive.     When  the  witnesses  had  been 
heard  and  the  pleadings  were  finished,  the  six  judges  retired 
to  their  consulting-room,  Mr.  Peters,  the  president,  requested 
this  gentleman,  as  the  junior  member  of  the  hierarchic  order, 
to  say  what  sentence,  in  his  oj)inion,  should  be  passed  on  the 
I  delinquents. 

In  every  instance  the  worthy  man  gave  the  same  answer  : 

*' Hulks.  Give  them  all  the  hulks."  On  this  the  presi- 
dent suggested  that,  as  the  accused  were  not  all  equally 
guilty,  it  would  not  be  right  to  visit  every  one  of  them  Avith 
the  same  punishment.  • 

But  the  starschina  of  Gatschino  was  quite  impervious  to 
such  fine  drawn  distinctions. 

"  Give  them  all  penal  servitude,  your  Excellency,"  repeated 
the  improvised  judge,  ''all  of  them.  Plave  I  not  sworn  to 
decide  impartially  ?  "  * 

The  minister,  it  must  be  admitted,  could  not  have  made 
a  better  choice.  Even  he,  the  exacting  Count  Pahlen,  was 
satisfied  ;  so  much  so,  indeed,  that  he  relegated  the  next 
trial  to  the  same  representatives,  except,  I  believe,  to  him 
of  the  nobility,  for  whom  somebody  still  more  pliable  was  sub- 
stituted. But  it  is  an  incontestable  fact  that  the  sta?'schina 
of  Gatschino  and  the  mayor  of  Odessa  retained  their  posi- 
tions and  continued  to  exercise  their  judicial  functions  for  a 
considerable  time. 

*  This  is  authentic. 


POLITICAL   TRIALS,  107 

With  a  tribunal  of  tliis  sort  there  could  be  neither 
difficulty  nor  apprehension  of  difficulty.  It  not  alone  con- 
formed to  positive  injunctions,  but  listened  with  bated  breath 
to  the  veriest  whisper  from  above.  All  depended  on  the 
Minister's  good  pleasure.  When  the  reactionary  current 
was  in  full  force  the  sentences  were  of  an  atrocious  severity. 
When  it  slackened  somewhat,  and  the  alarm  at  Court  abated, 
the  tribunal  became  more  indulgent.  I  can,  however,  recall 
but  one  instance  of  the  latter  mood  having  any  practical 
result ;  and  even  Mr.  Peters  and  his  worthy  colleagues  made, 
to  use  an  expressive  colloquialism,  "a  bad  shot." 

The  incident  came  to  pass  shortly  after  the  return  of 
Alexander  II.  from  the  Turkish  war.  According  to  common 
report  his  Majesty  had  seen  so  many  proofs  of  devotion  on 
the  part  of  young  Nihilists,  some  of  whom  acted  as  nurses 
in  the  hospitals,  others,  fresh  from  the  medical  schools,  as 
assistant  surgeons,  that  he  was  deeply  moved.  He  had,  it 
was  said,  completely  changed  his  views  concerning  the 
youthful  enthusiasts  who  had  been  described  to  him  by  his 
courtiers  as  monsters  of  iniquity.  The  judges  were  there- 
fore all  for  indulgence.  But  it  was  precisely  at  this  time 
that  the  memorable  trial  of  the  193  took  place,  and,  antici- 
pating, as  they  thought,  their  master's  wishes,  the  disjjensers 
of  imperial  justice  gave  him  the  opportunity  of  exercising 
the  prerogative  of  mercy  in  the  way  I  have  already  men- 
tioned. Unfortunately,  however,  an  accident  altogether 
unforeseen  marred  the  finely  calculated  scheme  of  the  courtly 
tribunal.  On  the  very  day  after  the  declaration  of  the  ver- 
dict, Trepoff,  who,  during  six  months  had  remained  un- 
punished for  his  shameful  treatment  of  Bogoliuboff,  Avhom 
he  had  flogged  for  not  doffing  his  hat — met  with  his  deserts. 
Vera  Zassoulich's  pistol-shot  not  alone  startled  Europe,  but 
changed  in  an  instant,  and  to  an  extent  almost  incompre- 
hensible, all  the  Emperor's  ideas  about  young  Nihilism,  and 
converted  his  good  intentions  into  bitterest  anger.     Instead 


108  RUSSIA    UNDER   THE   TZARS. 

of  a  gracious  smile  Pahlen  received  a  terrible  reprimand, 
which  he  transmitted  in  due  course  to  the  dismayed  senators, 
and  their  recommendations  to  mercy,  as  the  reader  is  aware, 
were  contemptuously  disregarded. 

On  another  occasion — the  trial  of  the  fifty  (March,  1877) 
— it  was  the  Government  itself  that  did  not  stand  to  their 
guns.  The  sentences  in  this  case  were  neither  under  nor 
over  the  limit  fixed  by  the  law  for  the  crime  of  propa- 
gandism — from  five  to  nine  years'  penal  servitude.  Among 
the  prisoners  most  hardly  dealt  with  were  several  5'oung 
girls  from  eighteen  to  twenty  years  old,  belonging  to  the 
best  families  of  Russia.  For  these  ladies  wide-spread  sym- 
pathy was  felt,  even  among  their  enemies.  Most  of  them 
had  studied  science  in  Swiss  universities,  and  they  might 
have  had  a  brilliant  career  as  physicians,  but  fired  with  revo- 
lutionary ideas,  they  returned  to  their  native  country,  there 
to  take  part  in  the  movement.  But  a  seemingly  insur- 
mountable obstacle  hindered  the  accomplishment  of  their 
wishes — the  deep  distrust  felt  by  the  lately  enfranchised  people 
for  all  who  belonged,  really  or  apparently,  to  the  same  class 
as  their  former  masters.  Then  in  their  burning  enthusiasm 
these  young  girls  resolved  to  renounce  all  the  refinements  of 
life  and  take  upon  their  delicate  shoulders  the  very  same 
burdens  which  were  crushing  women  trained  to  hard  work. 
They  became  common  mill  hands,  wrought  fifteen  hours  a 
day  in  Moscow  cotton  factories,  endured  cold,  hunger,  and 
dirt,  and  submitted  uncomplainingly  to  all  the  hardships  of 
a  sordid  lot,  in  order  that  they  might  preach  the  new  gospel 
as  sisters  and  friends,  not  as  superiors. 

There  was  something  profoundly  touching,  something 
that  recalled  the  times  of  primitive  Christianity,  in  this 
apostolate.  The  public  present  at  the  trial,  among  whom 
were  several  high  dignitaries  and  ladies  of  the  court,  were 
deeply  impressed,  and  the  authorities  deemed  it  expedient 
to  commute  the  ferocious  sentences  passed  on  these  young 


POLITICAL  TRIALS.  109 

girls  (whose  worst  offence  "was  reading  a  few  Socialist  pam- 
phlets to  their  fellow-workers),  to  perpetual  exile  in  Siberia. 
This  indulgence  was  not,  however,  extended  to  their  com- 
panions of  the  other  sex.  Danovitch,  Dgebodari,  Prince 
Zizianov,  Peter  Alekseeff,  whose  offences  were  precisely  the 
same,  were  compelled  to  undergo  penal  servitude  in  all  its 
rigor  and  in  its  cruellest  form. 

Except  in  these  two  cases  the  tribunal  and  the  Govern- 
ment have  had  the  courage  of  their  convictions.     Onuoj 
other  occasion  have  they  shown    ''the  quality  of  mercy.'*' 
Every  act  of  propagandism  is  punished  by  penal  servitude. 
And  this  propagandism,  it  should  be  remembered,  resembles 
only  very  remotely  that  which  is  known  by  the  same  name  in 
other  countries.  It  does  not  mean  the  vast  and  sustained  activ- 
ity of  a  German,  a  French,  or  an  English  political  movement. 
The  conditions  of  Eussian  life  do  not  admit  of  open  agita- 
tion.    The  propaganda  has  to  be  conducted  secretly  in  pri- ; 
vate  houses  and  informal  meetings.     In  the  great  majority 
of  eases,  moreover,  the  propagandist,  unless  he  be  a  man  of  j 
extraordinary  ability,  follows  his  arduous  calling  only  a  very 
short  time  before  he  falls  into  the  hands  of  the  police.     As 
was  proved  at  their  trial,  Dolgtshinzi  printed  but  two  pam- 
phlets, and  to  neither  of  them  were  brought  home  more 
than  two  or  three  cases  of   propagandism.     The  only  act 
proved  against  Gamoff  was  giving  a  couple  of  pamphlets  to 
two  factory  operatives,  an  act  for  which  he  was  awarded  the 
terrible   sentence   of  eight  years'  penal  servitude.     Those 
convicted  in  the  trial  of  the  fifty  were  not  more  fortunate.  ' 
Sophia  Bardina,  though  one  of  the  most  deeply  implicated, 
was  found  guilty  of  nothing  more  serious  than  reading,  on 
two  or  three  occasions,  revolutionary  pamphlets  to  an  audi- 
ence of  factory  folks,  yet  for  this  trifling  offence,  the  tribu-l 
nal  condemned  her  to  nine   years'  penal  servitude — after-; 
wards  commuted  by  special  favor  of  the  Tzar   to  lifelong 
exile  in  Siberia. 


110  RUSSIA   U2?DER  THE  TZAKS. 

Prosecutions  of  single  individuals,  when  there  can  be  no 
question  of  conspiracy  or  the  organization  of  a  secret  society, 
and  the  charge  is  therefore  limited  to  simple  propagandism, 
almost  alwajs  result  in  sentences  equally  severe.  In  Sep- 
tember, 1877,  Marie  Boutovskaia,  accused  of  giving  one 
book  to  a  workman,  was  awarded  seven  years'  hard  labor. 
Malinovsky,  a  working  man,  convicted  of  propagandism, 
was  sentenced  by  the  tribunal  to  ten  years'  penal  servitude. 
Diakoff  and  Siriakoif.  who,  though  tried  together,  had  no 
accomplices,  received  the  same  jiunishment  foralike  offence. 

Thus  the  utterance  of  a  few  words  in  favor  of  social  or 
political  reform  is  visited  with  precisely  the  same  punish- 
ment— ten  years'  penal  servitude — as  that  which  the  com- 
paratively mild  criminal  code  of  Russia  awards  for  premedi- 
tated murder  (unaccompanied  by  aggravating  circumstances), 
and  for  highway  robbery  with  violence,  provided  violence 
does  not  result  in  death. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

MILITARY   TRIBUNALS. 

Such  was  the  way  in  which  political  trials  were  conducted 
in  Russia  during  the  propagandist  period,  corresponding 
with  the  first  five  or  six  years  of  the  revolutionary  move- 
ment. 

When  the  attacks  on  Government  servants  hcgan,  which 
marked  the  opening  of  the  Terrorist  period,  tlie  Government 
promptly  repealed  the  existing  law  and  abolislicd  that 
strange  Judicial  machine,  the  famous  Senatorial  Chamber. 
TThy  this  was  done,  why  the  worthy  gentlemen  who  com- 
posed the  tribunal  were  deemed  unworthy  of  confidence,  it 
is  not  easy  to  guess.  It  was  so  docile  and  obedient,  so  well 
in  hand,  and  its  high-sounding  designation,  the  character 
imputed  to  it  of  "representing  the  three  orders,"  were  all 
in  its  favor.  People  at  a  distance  might  easily  take  this 
simulacrum  of  a  court  of  justice  for  a  genuine  tribunal,  and 
deem  it  worthy  of  its  pretentious  title.  It  is  true  that  after 
the  disappearance  of  the  Senatorial  Chamber  the  Govern- 
ment was  no  longer  satisfied  with  sentences  of  penal  servi- 
tude. Resolved  to  answer  the  red  terror  with  the  white,  it 
demanded  the  gallows,  always  the  gallows.  But  wliy^not  have 
required  this  from  Mr.  Peters  ?  The  spirited  senator  would 
certainly  not  have  refused,  and  the  honest  starschinav^ould 
doubtless  have  cried,  "Give  the  mall  the  rope,"  as  he  for- 
merly cried,  "Give  them  all  penal  servitude."  And  the 
courtly  and  cultured  Mr.  Kovoselski,  the  mayor  of  Odessa, 
would  probably  have  answered  that  he  was  too  well  bred  to 
differ  from  his  Excellency.     If  the  highly  improbable  con- 


112  RUSSIA    UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

tiugency  of  these  gentlemen  professing  scruples  of  conscience, 
or  showing  some  sense  of  humanity,  had  come  to  pass,  the 
Government  could  easily  have  replaced  them  with  instru- 
ments who  would  stop  at  nothing.  It  is  really  impossible 
to  suggest  any  plausible  reason  for  the  withdrawal  of  political 
cases  from  the  competence  of  tlie  civil  courts,  unless  it  was 
the  hope  that  Nihilists  would  be  terrified  by  the  formidable 
spectacle  of  courts-martial,  a  hope,  however,  which  could 
only  have  been  realized  if  the  Nihilists  had  reposed  some 
confidence  in  the  previous  tribunal.  But  the  fact  being 
altogether  the  reverse,  the  conclusion  was  self-evident. 

But  the  point  is  of  little  importance.  Whatever  may 
have  been  the  motives  of  the  Government,  the  fact  remains 
that  after  August  9,  1878,  a  certain  category  of  political 
offenders,  and  after  April  5,  1879 — when  Russia  was  divided 
into  six  satrajjies  under  military  dictators — political  offenders 
of  every  sort  were  tried  exclusively  by  officers  of  the  army, 
the  only  class  in  the  country  whom  the  authorities  consid- 
ered competent  to  exercise  judicial  functions.*  The  part  of 
Minister  of  Justice  was  taken  by  generals  and  other  military 
dignitaries  in  high  command. 

But  he  is  no  good  captain  who,  having  to  operate  against 
an  enemy,  follows  in  the  track  of  common  routine.  A  good 
captain  possesses  tlie  faculty  of  adaptability;  he  knows  how 
to  conform  to  local  conditions  and  the  varjing  phases  of  a 
campaign.  Nothing  is  more  natural  than  that  our  valiant 
generals,  transformed  into  satraps,  and  being  called  upon  to 
combat  Nihilism,  should  act  on  the  same  principle  of  sound 
military  tactics.  The  present  political  jurisdiction  lacks  the 
uniformity  of  the  time  of  Pahlen,  who,  like  a  true  German, 
had  a  passion  for  method,  regularity,  and  rule.  The  com- 
position of  the  courts  varies  according  to  the  taste,  the 

*  Only  two  trials  out  of  sixty-one — that  of  the  tzaricides,  on  13th 
March,  and  of  SolovicfE — were  judged  by  the  High  Court,  another 
special  tribunal. 


MILITARY   TEIBU^'ALS.  113 

caprice,  and  the  ideas  of  the  different  generals  by  whom 
they  are  ordered.  The  normal  military  tribunal  is  com- 
posed  of  ot5icers  of  various  grades,  divided  into  two  cate- 
gories. The  president  and  two  acolytes  are  permanent  mem- 
bers of  the  court.  The  others  are  selected  for  each  session 
from  among  officers  of  the  line.  The  governors-general 
sometimes  let  the  court  remain  unchanged.  Sometimes 
they  xarj  its  personnel  by  replacing  a  portion  of  the  mem- 
bers with  other  officers  named  ad  hoc.  Prisoners  are  allowed 
counsel,  only  the  latter  must  be  military  officers  who  are 
candidates  for  juridic  functions,  and  officially  subordinate 
to  the  procurator  as  to  their  own  chief.  At  Kieff  prisoners 
cannot  be  defended  by  civil  advocates  independent  of  the 
administration — although  the  law  permits  it — and  at  St. 
Petersburg,  in  the  prosecution  of  the  fourteen,  permission 
was  given  to  the  accused  to  retain  regular  counsel.  Buttiie 
latter  were  not  allowed  access  to  the  depositions  until  two 
hours  before  the  trial ;  and  all  the  members  of  the  court- 
martial  were  named  ad  hoc  by  the  Government. 

On  certain  occasions,  when  a  general  desires  to  strike  the 
imaginations  of  friends  and  foes  alike  by  some  act  of  extra- 
ordinary vigor,  he  goes  straight,  and  with  soldierlike  prompt- 
itude, to  his  point,  equally  regardless  of  legal  subtleties  and 
judicial  precedents.  Thus  Mlodezki,  who  attempted  the 
life  of  Loris  Melikoff,  was  judged,  condemned,  and  executed 
on  the  same  day.  The  tribunal  hardly  took  the  trouble  to 
ask  a  question.  Kaltourin  and  Gelvakoff,  who  killed  Gen- 
eral Strelnikoff  (of  whom  I  have  spoken  in  a  former  chap- 
ter), a  favorite  of  the  Tzar,  received  the  same  measure. 
Eoused  at  dead  of  night,  the  two  men  were  taken  to  a  private 
house,  where  they  found  several  officers,  nominees  of  Gen- 
eral Gourko.  These,  they  were  told,  were  their  judges. 
Fifteen  minutes  later  Kaltourin  and  Gelvakoff  heard  their 
doom,  and  on  the  following  day  both  were  hanged. 

Yet,  though  differing  somewhat  in  their  form  and  their 


114  RUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

methods  of  procedure,  these  courts  are  alike  in  one  essential 
point — passive  obedience  to  the  orders  of  their  superiors. 
The  old  judges  obeyed  the  Ministers  as  tcJiinoviiihs  are  in 
duty  bound  to  do  ;  the  men  render  military  obedience  to 
their  commander,  and  the  latter  would  be  very  much  sur- 
prised if  they  did  not.  It  is  an  incontestable  fact  that  the 
sentences  are  prescribed  beforehand.  Hence  they  vary,  not 
according  to  the  degree  of  a  prisoner's  guilt,  but  according 
to  the  ideas  of  the  governor-general  of  the  province  where 
the  trial  takes  place.  We  know,  for  instance,  beyond  doubt 
that  the  sentences  proposed  to  be  passed  on  the  accused  in 
the  case  of  Drobiasgin,  Maidanski,  and  others  (December, 
1870)  did  not  exceed  deportation  to  Siberia,  and  a  term  or 
two  of  penal  servitude.  This,  in  ordinary  circumstances, 
would  have  been  quite  sufficient  to  satisfy  even  the  exigences 
of  Kussian  justice,  for  the  most  seriously  compromised  of 
the  prisoners  had  nothing  worse  against  him  than  a  doubt- 
ful and  problematic  charge  of  complicity  in  an  attempt  (that 
did  not  end  fatally)  on  the  life  of  a  spy,  and  for  which,  at  a 
later  period,  the  principal  got  fourteen  years'  penal  servi- 
tude.* But  a  few  days  before  the  trial  Hartmann's  attempt 
took  place  (December  19,  1879). 

Seized  by  a  panic,  the  Government  resolved  to  make  a 
salutary  example. 

General  Todleben  (or,  probably,  Pauiutin)  gave  orders 
that  sentence  of  death  should  be  passed  on  the  prisoners. 
Seeing,  however,  that  the  crime  laid  to  their  charge  was 
neither  capital  nor  very  clearly  proved,  the  execution  of 
tliese  orders,  if  any  show  of  legality  whatever  had  to  be 
observed,  was  not  very  easy.     But  the  tribunal  was  equal  to 

*  Leo  Deutch,  secretly  surrendered  to  Russia  by  the  Grand  Duchy  of 
Baden,  on  the  condition  that  he  should  be  tried  as  an  ordinary  criminal 
by  a  civil  tribunal.  The  promise  was  not  kept,  Deutch  being  tried  by 
court-martial,  which,  however,  in  consideration  of  the  exceptional 
circumstances  of  the  case,  did  not  pass  on  him  an  extra-legal  sentence. 


MILITARY   TRIBUNALS.  115 

the  occasion.  In  the  expedient  known  as  "accumulative 
sentences,"  it  found  a  way  out  of  the  dithculty.  In  its 
judgment,  which  may  be  read  in  all  tlie  papers  of  the  time, 
there  is  set  down  opposite  the  name  of  each  prisoner  crimes, 
any  one  of  which  would,  in  ordinary  circumstances,  have 
been  more  than  adequately  punished  by  a  few  years'  trans- 
portation to  Siberia.  Then  these  sentences  were  added 
together,  and  the  sum  of  the  whole  was — death  !  This 
judgment,  and  the  tribunal's  expositions  of  its  reasons  for 
passing  the  sentences  in  question,  formed  one  of  the  most 
curious  episodes  in  the  annals  of  Russian  jurisprudence. 

The  case  of  Lisogub  (August,  1879)  is  still  more  extra- 
ordinary, for  he  neither  belonged  to  the  terrorist  party  nor 
committed  any  overt  act  whatever,  either  as  principal  or 
accomplice.  He  was  a  rich  proprietor,  whose  worst  offence 
was  aiding  with  money  the  revolutionary  cause.  Drigo,  his 
steward  and  confidant,  betrayed  him,  and  received  as  recom- 
]iense  for  his  treason  his  benefactor's  considerable  property. 
The  Government,  however,  hoping  to  turn  the  informer's 
services  to  further  account,  did  not  expose  him.  Drigo 
neither  appeared  as  a  witness  against  Lisogub,  nor  was  his 
evidence  mentioned  in  the  indictment.  The  facts  were 
privately  communicated  to  the  judges  before  the  trial  by 
Paniutin,  who  told  them,  at  the  same  time,  that  Lisogub 
must  die.  The  order  was  obeyed,  the  capital  sentence  duly 
passed,  and  on  the  10th  of  August,  1879,  Lisogub  was  hanged. 

Some  five  years  ago — to  be  exact,  on  February  23,  1880 — 
there  took  place  at  Kieff,  under  the  rule  of  General 
Tchertkov,  the  trial  of  a  young  pupil  of  tlte  gymnasium, 
named  Eosovski.  While  searching  his  room  the  police 
found  a  proclamation  of  the  Executive  Committee. 

"  Does  this  belong  to  you  ?"  asked  one  of  the  searchers. 

"  Yes,  it  belongs  to  me." 

"Who  gave  it  to  you  ?  " 

'•That  I  cannot  say.     I  am  not  a  spy,"  was  the  answer. 


116  RUSSIA    UNDER   THE   TZARS. 

In  ordinary  times  he  would  have  been  sent  to  Siberia  by 
administrative  order  (without  trial);  possibly,  as  he  was  a 
minor  (nineteen  years  old),  he  might  have  got  off  v,-ith  a 
term  of  exile  in  one  of  the  northern  provinces.  But,  on 
the  fifth  of  the  same  month,  an  attempt  had  been  made  to 

1  How  up  the  Winter  Palace.  General  Tchertkov  was  in  the 
same  truculent  mood  rs  General  Todieben.  An  example 
was  needed,  and  young  Kosovski  paid  with  his  life  the 
penalty  of  other  men's  deeds.  His  sentence  was  death, 
and  he  died  on  the  scaffold  (5th  March,  1880). 

At  Kharkoff  General  Loris  Melikoff  showed  every  dispo- 
sition to  emulate  the  jDatriotic  example  of  his  colleagues. 
Yet,  although  it  rained  political  trials  in  other  places, 
hardly  any  had  taken  place  in  his  government.     From  April 

/  5,  1879,  when  the  six  satrapies  were  created,  there  had  been 
but  one  prosecution  at  Kharkoff,  and  even  then  the  two 
principal  prisoners  were  not  Nihilists.  The  case,  however, 
was  a  very  remarkable  one.  Two  ordinary  escaped  convicts, 
got  up  as  gendarmes,  presented  themselves  at  the  Kharkoff 
prison,  provided  with  forged  warrants  in  the  name  of  the 
general  of  gendarmes,  Kovalinski,  for  the  delivery  to  them 
of  a  political  prisoner  called  Fomin,  who,  as  they  pretended, 
was  wanted  by  the  examining  magistrate,  their  idea  being, 
of  course,  to  effect  his  escape.  All  the  papers  were  in  order, 
and  General  Kovalinski's  signature  was  so  well  imitated, 
that  on  the  first  blush  he  acknowledged  it  as  being  veritably 
his  own.  But  the  attempt  was  foiled  by  the  treachery  of  a 
tcJiinovnih,  from  whom  the  conspirators  had  bought  the 
blank  warrant  forms,  aud  the  counterfeit  gendarmes  fell 
into  the  hands  of  the  police.  But  the  contrivers  of  the 
enterprise  were  warned  betimes,  and  got  safely  away.  Only 
one  of  the  supposed  accom]ilices  was  arrested— a  student 
named  Efremoft',  in  whose  room  the  plotters  had  met.  He 
had,  however,  no  idea  of  what  they  were  about,  had  never 
been  present  at  their  meetings,  and  denied  all  knowledge  of 


MILITARY  TlilBUKALS.  117 

their  doings.     Tliis  was  likely  enough,  nothing  being  more 
common  than  for  Russian  students  to  place  their  rooms  at 
the  disposal  of  a  friend.     It  is,  moreover,  in  the  highest 
degree  probable  that,  in  order  not  to  expose  their  host  to 
danger,  the  conspirators  would  refrain  from  taking  him  into 
their  confidence.     Before  leaving  his  apartment  they  were 
careful  to  burn  the  paper  on  which  they  had  practised  the 
imitation  of    General   Kovalinski's   signature.      But  they 
made  a  fatal  omission.     It  did  not  occur  to  them  to  scatter 
the  charred  remnants  with  the  poker ;  they  were  left  in  tlie 
grate  in  a  heap,  and  when  the  police  came,  and,  after  their 
wont,  examined  everything,  they  were  able  to  decipher,  on  a 
piece   of   paper   not   completely  carbonized,   the  general's 
name.       They    showed    it  to    Efremoff,    Avho,   suspecting 
nothing,  had  the  imprudence  to  read  the  name  aloud  at  the  | 
very  moment  the  fatal  fragment  fell  asunder.    This  was  the 
sole  proof  of  Efremoff's  alleged  culpability,  and  of  his  com- 
plicity in  the  attempt  to  liberate  Fumin.      But  a  victim  , 
being  needed,  he  was  condemned  to  death,  and  Loris  Meli-  I 
kofi  confirmed  the  sentence.     It  was  not,  however,  carried 
into  effect,  for  Efremoff  sued  for  the  pardon  which  all  the  t 
others  had  hitherto  disdainfully  refused  to  demand,  and,  in 
consideration  of  his  submission,  his  sentence  was  commuted  i 
to  twenty  years'  hard  labor. 

Tiiese  examples  abundantly  prove  that  the  military  tribu- 
nals charged  with  the  trial  of  political  prisoners  are  merely 
judicial  purveyors  for  the  hangman  ;  their  duty  is  strictly 
limited  to  providing  victims  for  the  scaffold  and  the  hulks. 
The  orders  they  receive  they  slavishly  obey.  Their  function 
is  to  put  into  the  shape  of  articles  and  paragraphs  of  the 
law  the  decrees  of  the  administration,  and  give  to  tlicir  pro- 
ceedings the  sanction  of  a  seeming  legality.  In  the  case  of 
Kovalsky  (August  2,  1878),*  the  first  who  was  condemned 

*  Altliough  Kovalsky's  trial  took  place  before  the  law  of  August  Slh, 
he  was  judged  (by  special  order)  by  a  court-martial. 


118  EUSSIA    UNDER   THE   TZARS. 

to  death,  tlie  judges,  deeply  moved  by  the  speech  of  the 
advocate,  Bardovski,  had  a  moment's  hesitation,  asked  each 
other  how  they  should  act,  and  finally  resolved  to  demand 
further  instruction  from  St.  Petersburg.  A  dispatch  was 
sent  accordingly,  and,  pending  the  arrival  of  the  answer — 
some  three  hours — the  court  reserved  its  decision.  The  an- 
swer was  a  decided  negative,  the  preceding  order  being 
strictly  confirmed.  After  this  there  could  be  no  further 
hesitation  ;  the  death  sentence  was  duly  passed,  and  Kovalsky 
duly  shot. 

Did  not  Strelnikoff  boast  that  the  tribunals  would  do 
everything  he  desired  ?  Yet,  until  these  later  times,  there 
remained  a  sort  of  check  which,  though  in  nowise  acting  as 
a  restraint  on  the  arbitrary  proceedings  of  the  Government, 
imposed  on  its  agents  in  ordinary  cases  a  certain  measure  of 
decorum.  This  was  the  publicity  of  trials  ;  not,  however, 
the  publicity  to  which  other  European  countries  are  accus- 
tomed, for  in  Russian  official  methods  there  is  nearly  always 
something  equivocal,  and  concessions  made  with  one  hand 
are  generally  more  than  half  taken  back  with  the  other.  In 
order  to  prevent  manifestations  in  favor  of  the  prisoners,  the 
audiences  were  sorted  with  particular  care.  Only  those  pro- 
vided with  special  tickets,  signed  by  the  president  of  the 
tribunal,  were  allowed  to  be  present  at  a  trial.  A  certain 
number  were  given  to  representatives  of  the  press,  and  the 
liberalism  of  the  presiding  judge  was  gauged  by  his  gener- 
osity in  this  regard.  But  without  risking  instant  sui)pres- 
sion,  the  papers  might  not  publish  their  own  report  of  the 
proceedings,  however  guarded  or  insignificant  it  might  be. 
Tiiey  had  to  wait  until  the  official  text,  revised,  purged,  and 
retouched  by  the  Minister  and  the  police,  was  placed  at  their 
disposal.  They  could  not  print  anything  not  contained  there- 
in, and  the  mutilated  report  had  to  be  strictly  followed.* 

Access  to  the  courts  being  allowed  to  representatives  of 

*  This  rule  gave  rise  to  a  curious  custom.     The   official   Monitor, 
having  kept  the  press  waiting  an  undue  time  for  the  details  of  a  trial 


MILITARY  TRIBUNALS.  119 

the  national  press,  it  could  not  well  be  refused  to  correspond- 
ents of  foreign  journals,  who  were  always  both  more  ini])or In- 
nate and  indiscreet  than  their  Russian  confreres.  Their 
telegrams,  it  is  true,  could  be  intercepted,  and  their  letters 
seized  as  they  passed  through  the  post-office — sometimes  ; 
for  the  writers  had  learnt  the  trick  of  sending  them  by  ways 
unknown  to  the  police,  and  somehow  or  other  the  communi- 
cations generally  reached  their  destinations  and  appeared  in 
print.  The  efforts  put  forth  by  the  Government  to  check 
publicity  at  home  and  hinder  the  publication  of  unpleasant 
facts  abroad  showed  how  much  it  fretted  under  these  prac- 
tically impotent  restraints  on  their  proceedings. 

Since  the  trial  of  the  tzaricides  (Sophia  Perovskaia,  Geli- 
aboff,  and  others),  this  last  remaining  check — if  such  it  could 
be  considered — has  been  removed.  All  subsequent  political 
trials  have  been  conducted  with  closed  doors.  Nobody  un- 
connected with  the  proceedings  is  permitted  to  be  present. 
To  this  rule  no  exception  is  allowed,  even  in  favor  of  the 
ichinovniks  of  the  Tzar  ;  for  albeit  these  gentlemen  are  not 
likely  to  have  revolutionary  svmpathies,  they  might  con- 
ceivably hear  something  that  would  sap  their  loyalty  or  cor- 
rupt their  morals.  At  the  last  trial,  that  of  the  fourteen 
(October,  1884),  the  interdict  was  extended  to  the  nearest 
kindred  of  the  accused.  The  public  on  that  occasion  was 
represented  by  the  Minister  of  War  and  Marine  and  five 
superior  employes  of  superhuman  fidelity.  So  well  kept  was 
the  secret,  moreover,  that,  according  to  the  correspondent  of 

in  which  the  public  took  great  interest,  the  ingenious  idea  occurred  to  a 
paper — if  I  mistake  not,  the  St.  Petersburg  Messenger — an  idea  after- 
wards acted  upon  by  all  its  contemporaries,  of  i)rinting,  so  to  speak, 
the  outside  of  the  trial.  For  several  consecutive  days  it  amused  its 
readers  with  graphic  descriptions-  of  the  demeanor  of  the  prisoners, 
their  faces,  the  play  of  their  features,  the  impression  they  made  on  the 
public,  and  a  mass  of  other  insignificant  dctiils,  witliout  letting  fall  a 
single  word  about  the  thing  essential,  the  indictment,  tlie  evidence,  and 
the  pleadings,  until  the  olTicial  re[)ort,  having  undergone  the  ordeal  of 
the  constabulary,  was  allowed  to  be  published. 


120  EUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

the  Times,  the  inhabitants  of  the  neighboring  houses  had  no 
suspicion  that  a  political  trial  was  going  on  in  the  court- 
house. 

This,  then,  is  our  present  position. 

For  political  offences  there  is  in  Russia  neither  justice  nor 
mercy.  There  never  has  been.  Ordinary  breaches  of  the  law 
may  be  tried  by  a  jury,  but  only  once  has  the  Eussian  Gov- 
ernment tried  the  experiment  of  appealing  to  the  representa- 
tives of  the  public  conscience  in  the  matter  of  political 
offences.  That  was  the  case  of  Vere  Zassoulitch.  On  this 
occasion,  as  is  well  known,  the  authorities  burnt  their 
fingers,  and  it  is  unlikely  that  the  experiment  will  ever  be 
repeated.  The  courts  have  always  been  the  organs  of  the 
executive ;  they  differ  only  in  form  from  the  police,  the  gen- 
darmery,  and  other  branches  of  the  administration.  All  are 
organized  on  the  same  arbitrary  principles.  The  judgment, 
with  its  pomp  and  circumstance,  is  simply  a  dress  parade,  a 
sort  of  homage  paid  by  Russian  despotism  to  modern  civili- 
zation. 

And  now  the  Government,  out  of  mere  hysterical  nervous- 
ness, has  little  by  little  stripped  its  tribunals  of  evciy  attri- 
bute which  gave  them  the  outward  show  of  courts  of  justice. 
The  present  tribunals  are  the  police,  the  gendarmes,  the  ad- 
ministration in  all  their  nakedness.  I  do  not  say  that  this 
is  barbarous,  or  despotic,  or  infamous.  It  is  simply  stupid. 
The  Russian  Government  may  be  likened  to  a  shopkeeper 
who,  after  exposing  in  his  window  goods  of  seemingly  fair 
quality,  gradually  replaces  them  with  articles  whose  rotten- 
ness is  visible  to  all  beholders,  the  quality  of  which  nobody 
blessed  with  eyes  and  a  nose  can  fail  to  detect.  I  ask  pardon 
for  this  imsavory  comparison,  but  there  is  really  no  other 
that  fits  in  with  the  facts.  The  conduct  of  the  Tzar's  Gov- 
ernment in  this  regard  can  only  discredit  it  in  the  opinion 
of  Europe  without  making  the  least  impression  on  its  ene- 
mies.    For  once  it  is  decided  to  put  a  fowl  in  the  pot,  it 


MILITARY  TRIBUNALS.  121 

must  be  a  matter  of  supreme  indifference  to  the  victim  with 
Avhat  sauce  it  will  be  eaten. 

So  far  as  revolutionists  are  concerned,  the  question  of 
political  jurisdiction  is  of  the  least  possible  moment,  and 
among  Kussians  generally,  it  excites  little  if  any  attention. 
I  have  dealt  with  the  subject  because  I  am  writing  for 
readers  to  whom  it  is  naturally  of  great  interest.  In  Euro- 
pean countries  where  the  courts  of  justice  are  the  supreme 
if  not  the  sole  power  whereby,  in  the  last  instance,  the  re- 
lations between  the  whole  body  of  citizens  represented  by 
the  State  and  each  individual  citizen  are  regulated,  tlie 
right  constitution  of  the  tribunals  and  the  full  development 
of  every  needful  guarantee  for  the  equity  of  their  judgments 
is  a  matter  of  the  highest  importance.  In  Russia,  on  the 
other  hand,  where  the  police  can  set  at  naught  the  decision 
of  a  judge,  the  constitution  of  the  courts  may  interest  you 
as  a  political  tribune,  in  that  it  affords  you  a  means  of  ex- 
pressing openly  youi'  ideas  ;  but  in  itself,  as  a  true  court  of 
justice — a  body  competent  to  pronounce  on  your  fate — you 
cannot  discuss  the  subject  seriously.  What  matters  it 
though  you  receive  a  light  sentence,  if  on  its  expiration  the 
police  gives  you  another  far  more  severe  ?  What  does  it 
profit  you  to  be  discharged  ''  without  a  stain  on  your  charac- 
ter" if  the  police  arrest  you  in  the  very  precincts  of  the 
court,  put  you  a  second  time  in  prison,  and  send  you  to 
Siberia  !  What,  again,  is  the  advantage  of  having  your 
sentence  of  twenty  years'  penal  servitude  commuted  to  one 
of  five,  if  the  administration  puts  you  in  a  dungeon  so  hor- 
rible and  noisome  that,  unless  you  are  superhumanly  robust, 
you  have  not  the  remotest  chance  of  outliving  even  the 
shorter  term  ? 

If  we  would  learn  how  the  Government  treats  its  enemies, 
it  is  not  to  the  tribunals  that  we  must  address  ourselves  ; 
we  must  know  how  they  are  dealt  with  after  the  verdict  and 
after  the  judgment. 
6 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

AFTEE    JUDGMENT. 

Let  us  suppose  that  a  prisoner  is  condemned  to  the  hulks 
for  as  many  years  as  it  may  please  the  reader  to  give  him — 
for  truly  this  is  a  point  of  slightest  importance,  a  mere  mat- 
ter of  detail.  The  sentence  is  read  with  all  the  circumstance 
prescribed  by  the  law,  and  the  work  of  the  court  is  done. 
Yet  it  is  precisely  at  this  point,  when  his  fate  is  seemingly 
decided,  that  for  the  prisoner  and  those  he  loves  arises  the 
burning  question:  What  will  the  Government  do  with  him  ? 

But  how  !  And  the  sentence  ?  Does  Russian  despotism 
go  the  length  of  changing  at  once  the  punishment  ordered 
by  the  judges  and  inflicting  penalties  which  they  never  con- 
templated ?  Not  yet.  For  that  there  will  be  ample  time 
later  on.  Meanwhile,  the  sentence  is  respected.  But  in 
Russia,  as  every  one  well  knows,  there  are  hulks  and  hulks, 
gaols  and  gaols.  It  makes  all  the  difference  in  the  world 
between  being  sent  to  Schliisselburg  and  a  Central  Prison,  to 
the  ravelin  of  Troubetzkoi  and  the  bagnios  of  Siberia. 

Hence,  all  who  take  an  interest  in  our  prisoner's  fate — his 
kinsfolk  and  his  friends — move  heaven  and  earth  to  obtain 
for  him  the  unspeakable  favor  of  being  sent  to  Siberia.  The 
father  and  mother — above  all,  the  mother,  as  being  the  most 
likely  to  succeed  in  this  momentous  enterprise — are  gen- 
erally the  first  to  make  the  attempt.  If  they  are  poor  their 
son's  comrades  subscribe  among  themselves  a  sufficient  sum 
to  defray  the  parent's  expenses  to  St.  Petersburg.  If,  be- 
sides being  poor,  they  are  ignorant  and  without  friends  in 
bureaucratic    spheres,   they  are  instructed  and  advised — 


AFTER   JUDGMENT.  123 

directed  to  appeal  to  some  functionary  whose  heart  is  be- 
lieved to  be  not  altogether  hardened,  and  who  may,  per- 
chance, listen  to  their  praj-ers  and  use  his  influence  on 
behalf  of  their  child.  They  are  directed,  too,  to  address 
themselves  to  certain  tender-hearted  women  who,  beliind 
the  scenes,  have  great  influence  in  high  quarters  which  they 
are  often  disposed  to  exercise  in  favor  of  an  unfortunate 
prisoner. 

Next  to  a  mother,  a  wife  is  the  intercessor  whose  mission 
of  mercy  is  the  most  likely  to  be  crowned  with  success. 
When  there  is  no  wife — and  political  jmsoncrs  being  mostly 
young,  are  generally  unmarried— the  part  of  intercessor  is 
taken  by  a  sweetheart.  Sweethearts  are  never  wanting.  If 
a  prisoner  has  neither  father  nor  mother,  neither  sister  nor 
brother,  nor  one  still  dearer  to  visit  him,  to  think  of  him, 
and  intercede  for  him,  his  friends  at  once  jirovide  him  with 
a  fiancee.  There  are  few  young  girls  wlio,  in  such  cir- 
cumstances, would  refuse  to  play  the  painful  and  dangerous 
part  of  sweetheart — dangerous,  because  acceptance  of  the 
position  implies  a  degree  of  sympatliy  with  revolutionists 
and  their  ideas  which  may  bring  upon  them  the  undesired 
attention  of  the  police,  with  all  its  consequences.  If  the 
prisoner  be  not  too  seriously  compromised,  the  lower  ad- 
ministration, which  in  these  cases  is  the  arbiter,  is  good- 
naturedly  blind  to  the  now  common  artifice,  and  grants  the 
improvised  sweetheart  the  privilege  of  seeing  her  supposed 
lover,  lets  her  take  him  books  and,  perhaps,  an  occasional 
bottle  of  wine.  It  is  she  also  who,  either  alone  or  in  com- 
pany with  the  mother,  undertakes  the  onerous  and  anxious 
duty  of  soliciting  a  commutation  of  his  sentence  or  his 
transfer  to  more  desirable  quarters. 

To  attain  this  end  every  possible  effort  is  made,  every  in- 
fluence called  into  play.  Mother,  sister,  wife,  or  sweetheart, 
and  friends,  all  set  to  work  and  beseech,  importune,  and 
torment  in  turn  procurator,  police,  and  gendarmery,  and 


124  EUSSIA  UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

every  person  in  authority  whom  they  are  suffered  to  ap- 
proach. Kefused  in  one  quarter  they  try  in  another  ;  and 
for  days,  perhaps  for  weclvs,  alternate  between  the  pleasures 
of  hope  and  the  agonies  of  despair.  At  last  they  can  breathe 
a  sigh  of  thankfulness  and  relief ;  their  object  is  accom- 
plished, their  prayer  granted — it  has  been  decided  to  send 
the  prisoner,  on  whose  behalf  so  many  efforts  have  been 
made,  to  the  bagnios  of  Siberia,  to  the  land  of  cold  and 
misery,  of  brutal  taskmasters  and  cruel  punishments,  of 
hard  labor  in  mines,  where  men's  hands  and  feet  are  burnt 
by  the  frozen  fetters  that  bind  them.  And  father  and 
mother,  sweetheart  and  friends,  are  content  withal  ;  they 
congratulate  each  other  on  their  success,  and  say  that  their 
beloved  prisoner  was  born  under  a  lucky  star  ! 

I  shall  have  some  observations  to  offer  further  on  as  to 
the  delights  which  await  the  Benjamins  of  fortune  who  are 
sent  to  the  frozen  north.  Let  us,  in  the  meantime,  accom- 
pany the  unlucky  ones  who  are  consigned  to  one  or  other  of 
the  two  central  prisons  situate  a  short  distance  from  Khar- 
koff,  in  our  beautiful  South,  in  that  Ukraine  which  has  been 
justly  called  the  Russian  Italy.  The  first  of  these  prisons  is 
in  the  district  of  Borisoglebsk,  the  other  in  the  district  of 
Novo-Belgorotl,  near  the  village  of  Petchencghi.  I  shall 
confine  my  remarks  to  the  latter,  for  there  exist  authentic 
documents  which  describe  in  full  detail  the  manner  of  life 
of  its  inmates.  These  documents  are  two  invaluable  me- 
moirs, written  by  two  prisoners  who  underwent,  or  saw  with 
their  own  eyes,  all  the  things  they  have  set  down.  One  of 
the  memoirs  deals  with  the  time  before  1878,  the  other  takes 
up  the  narrative  at  the  point  where  it  was  abandoned  by  his 
predecessor,  and  brings  it  down  to  1880.  Both  are  of  un- 
doubted authenticity.  They  were  written  secretly,  day  by 
day,  in  the  semi-darkness  of  the  writers'  cells,  and  smuggled 
out  of  the  prison  by  one  of  those  underground  ways  which, 
despite  the  vigilance  of  gaolers  and  i^olicemen,  are  always 


AFTER  JUDGMENT.  125 

to  be  found  in  the  country  of  the  Tzars.  The  first  memoir, 
entitled  ''  Buried  Alive,"  and  completed  and  sent  away  in 
July,  1878,  was  forthwith  printed  in  the  clandestine  print- 
ing-office of  the  Zemlia  e  Volia.  The  second,  which  bore 
the  title  of  "Funeral  Oration  on  Alexander  IL,"  left  the 
gaol  of  Novo-Belgorod  about  the  middle  of  1880.  It  was 
copied  and  re-copied  and  circulated  in  manuscript  in  every 
important  town  of  the  empire,  and  a  few  mouths  ago  the 
Messenger  of  the  Xarodnaia  Volia  published  the  memoir  in 
extenso. 

The  Central  Prison  is  a  large  group  of  buildings,  hard  by 
the  village  of  Petcheneghi,  inclosed  within  a  high  wall, 
which  completely  isolates  them  from  the  rest  of  the  living 
world.  The  uniformity  of  this  wall  is  broken  by  a  great 
gateway,  the  only  one  which  gives  access  to  this  dark  abode 
of  sorrow  and  suffering.  On  a  large  board  above  the  gate- 
way are  inscribed  the  words :  "  Central  Prison  of  Novo- 
Belgorod."  In  the  middle  of  the  inclosure,  and  about 
fifty  paces  from  the  outward  walls  (to  render  escape  by  un- 
dermining more  difficult)  rises  a  vast  building — the  central 
body  of  the  gaol.  Turning  the  corner  of  this  edifice  the 
curious  visitor,  or  newly  arrived  prisoner,  sees  at  the  end  of 
the  court,  and  over  against  its  either  angle,  two  single-storied 
houses  which,  though  large,  are  much  smaller  than  the  prin- 
cipal building.  Each  has  a  gateway  ;  on  the  pediment  of 
one  is  carved  the  inscription,  *'  Right  Cells  ;"'  and  on  that 
of  the  other,  "Left  Cells." 

These  two  houses  are  reserved  for  State  prisoners. 

Unlike  the  fortress  of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul,  the  inmates 
of  the  Central  Prison  do  not  consist  exclusively  of  political 
convicts.  It  is  a  ]ienitentiary  for  the  reception  of  common 
law-breakers  of  the  worst  type — confirmed  malefactors — 
whom  the  Government  does  not  send  to  Siberia  for  fear 
they  should  escape.  The  whole  of  the  great  central  build- 
ing is  occupied  by  convicts  of  this  class,  who  form  three- 


126  RUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

fourths  of  the  Avhole.  Only  by  comparing  the  lot  and 
treatment  of  these  two  categories  of  prisoners  can  the  ten- 
der care,  the  kind  though tfulness  of  the  Government  for 
political  offenders  be  properly  ai5i)reciated. 

The  common  criminals  live  and  work  together;  minds 
and  hands  are  alike  occupied  ;  they  have  the  solace  of  con- 
genial society,  and,  beyond  the  loss  of  liberty,  have  little  to 
complain  about.  But  their  political  confreres  are  doomed 
to  complete  isolation.  Each  man  lives  a  lonesome  life  in 
his  little  cell.  Even  outside  he  is  still  solitary,  for  in  order 
that  prisoners  may  see  as  little  of  each  other  as  possible, 
they  are  made  to  take  their  walks  at  different  times  and  in 
three  different  yards.  Attempts  to  exchange  words  with 
fellow-captives,  casually  encountered,  are  strictly  forbidden 
and  severely  punished.  No  exclamation  may  be  uttered, 
no  voice  raised  in  this  tomb  of  the  living. 

Nevertheless,  some  half-dozen  common  malefactors  are 
confined  in  as  many  cells  of  the  thirty  which  the  two 
houses  contain.  They  are,  of  course,  the  greatest  scoun- 
drels of  the  entire  collection — parricides  under  sentence  of 
hard  labor  for  life,*  professional  brigands,  and  wretches  who 
have  murdered  whole  families.  Yet  even  these  monsters  of 
crime  are  treated  more  humanely  than  the  politicals.  They 
are  free  all  the  day  long,  are  allowed  to  work  in  the  society 
of  their  companions,  and  only  sliut  up  in  their  cells  during 
the  night.  They  are  neither  tutored,  watched,  nor  hindered 
from  communicating  with  their  fellows,  lleinous  as  are 
their  crimes,  their  yoke  is  easy  and  their  burden  light. 

AVhen  in  July,  1878,  the  political  prisoners  of  Novo-Bel- 
gorod,  reduced  to  the  extremity  of  despair,  adopted  the  ter- 
rible expedient  of  refraining  from  food,  and  began  tlie  long- 
est and  bitterest  "  famine  strike,"  recorded  in  the  mournful 

*  Capital  punishment  for  other  than  political  ofTenccs  has  not  pre- 
vailed in  Kussia  for  more  than  a  century,  being  abolished  by  the  Em- 
press Elizabeth  in  1753. 


AFTER   JUDGMENT.  127 

annals  of  Russian  prisons,  the  nltimatum  they  presented  to 
the  governor  contained  but  these  demands  : — That  they 
might  work  together  in  the  prison  workshops,  that  they 
might  receive  food  from  without,  and  be  allowed  to  read 
any  books  approved  by  the  official  censorship — not  merely 
such  as  the  governor  in  his  caprice  thought  lit  to  select.  In 
other  words,  they  desired  no  more  than  to  be  placed  on  the 
same  footing  as  murderers,  fire-raisers,  and  highway  rob- 
bers ;  for  the  latter  enjoyed  all  the  privileges  in  question 
except  that  of  reading,  which,  as  they  were  utterly  illiterate, 
they  could  not  well  have  turned  to  account. 

Yet  the  director  of  the  prison,  and  the  governor-general 
of  the  province  (Prince  Krapotkin,  cousin  of  Peter  Krapot- 
kin,  the  prisoner  of  Clairvaux),  let  them  endure  the  pangs 
of  hunger  for  eight  days  (from  the  3d  to  the  10th  of  July 
inclusive)  before  acceding  to  these  reasonable  requests.  It 
was  only  when  the  strikers  were  so  weak  that  they  could 
not  rise  from  their  beds,  and  every  hour  brought  them 
within  measurable  distance  of  death,  that,  to  prevent  a  ca- 
tastrophe which  would  have  horrified  all  Russia,  Krapotkin 
yielded  and  promised  that  what  they  demanded  should  be 
done.  But  this,  in  the  issue,  proved  to  be  a  deliberate  lie— a 
subterfuge  to  induce  them  to  eat.  The  promise  made  to  the 
ear  was  broken  to  the  hope  ;  the  privileges  granted  to  rob- 
bers and  murderers  were  still  withheld  from  the  prisoners  of 
state.     They  remained  as  before  pariahs  among  outcasts. 

And  what,  it  may  be  asked,  were  the  crimes  of  these  men  ? 
Their  guilt  was  surely  great  ;  to  deserve  punishment  so 
severe,  treatment  so  cruel,  they  must  have  been  inveterate 
offenders— Terrorists  of  the  deepest  dye.  Not  at  all.  In  a 
subsequent  chapter  I  shall  describe  the  lot  of  the  Terrorists 
who  were  not  deemed  sufficiently  guilty  to  be  dealt  with  by 
the  hangman.  In  the  Central  Prison  were  only  propagand- 
ists, peaceful  workers  of  the  early  dawn,  the  flower  of  the 
noBle  generation  of  18T0,  the  first  that  was  bred  and  grew 


128  RUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

lip  in  a  Russia  free  from  the  stain  of  slavery  ;  generation 
which  from  the  sorrowful  past,  pusillanimous  and  decrepit, 
inherited  but  a  great  yearning  and  pity  for  a  suffering  peo- 
ple, oppressed  during  centuries,  and  which  brought  to  the 
fatherland  an  amount  of  eager  devotion,  a  beautiful  ardor, 
unmatched  jDrobably  in  any  other  age  or  country.  First 
among  these  prisoners  of  liberty  was  Hypolitus  Myshkin 
(hero  of  the  trial  of  the  193),  a  Government  stenographist 
and  owner  of  a  printing-office,  which  he  devoted  to  the  pro- 
duction of  revolutionary  literature.  When  brought  up  for 
trial  Myshkin  proved  himself  to  be  an  orator  of  rare  power. 
The  president  was  utterly  confounded  by  his  apt  replies  and 
ready  wit ;  the  vast  audience,  one  half  of  whom  were  State 
functionaries,  hung  spell- bound  on  his  lips,  transformed  for 
a  moment  by  the  magic  of  his  eloquence  into  admirers  and 
friends.  His  speech  (November  15,  1877)  was  an  event. 
On  the  day  before,  almost  unknown,  Myshkin,  by  this  single 
achievement,  became  famous  throughout  the  land.  His 
name  still  lives.  In  the  sanctuary  of  hundreds  of  solitary 
students,  and  of  many  a  young  enthusiastic  girl,  the  por- 
trait most  often  seen  beside  the  likeness  of  Sophia  Perov- 
skaia  is  that  of  the  intrepid  young  orator,  with  his  high  and 
noble  forehead,  his  intellectual  beauty,  his  large  dark  eyes, 
and  his  defiant  bearing. 

In  striking  contrast  with  Myshkin  was  his  companion-in- 
arms Plotnikoff,  a  quiet,  modest  young  fellow,  once  a  stu- 
dent. He  had  not  distinguished  himself  by  any  striking 
achievement ;  his  political  life  did  not  last,  so  to  speak, 
more  than  a  week.  Member  of  the  Propagandist  Society  of 
the  Dolgoushinzi,  of  which  I  have  already  spoken,  he  got 
into  trouble  througli  giving  a  few  pamphlets  to  some  peas- 
ants in  the  province  of  Moscow.  But  after  his  arrest  his 
high  courage  and  martyr-like  zeal  won  him  a  lofty  place  even 
among  the  men  of  his  circle,  all  of  whom  showed  Russia  a 
splendid  example  of  hardihood  and  resolution. 


AFTER  JUDGMENT.  /  129 

"  As  for  Plotnikoff,"  said  the  public  prosecutor,  iu  tlic 
bureaucratic  language  of  his  requisition,  "albeit  he  has 
acknowledged  all  the  crimes  laid  to  his  charge,  he  has  not 
done  so  in  any  spirit  of  contrition,  but  out  of  pure  perversity 
of  mind  ;  a  perversity  amounting  to  fanaticism,  and  exclud- 
ing all  hope  of  repentance."  Better  eulogy  than  this  could 
hardly  be  made  on  a  man  devoted  to  a  great  idea. 

Plotnikoff's  comrade  and  friend,  Leon  Dmokhovsky,  the 
oldest  member  of  the  Dolgoushiuzi  circle,  was  a  rich  "land- 
owner of  the  province  of  Kharkoff,  a  man  of  science  with  a 
heart  of  gold.  Everywhere— in  the  society  of  his  young 
companions  as  well  as  in  the  Central  Prison  and  the  hulks, 
where  they  sent  him  to  perish— this  man  was  a  faithful 
friend,  a  wise  counsellor,  and,  in  case  of  need,  a  just  arbiter 
for  all  with  whom  he  was  brought  into  contact,  and  who 
required  his  help.  His  offence  was  printing  clandestinely, 
with  his  o■\^^l  hands,  two  socialist  pamphlets — his  sentence 
eight  years'  penal  servitude. 

Then  there  were  the  two  sons  of  Kaukaze  Djebadori,  and 
their  adopted  brother,  Zdanovitch,  son  of  an  exiled  Polish 
father  and  a  Circassian  mother  ;  all  three  revolutionary  mis- 
sionaries among  the  workmen  of  Moscow  and  St.  Peters- 
burg, and  all  three  as  full  of  fire  and  spirit  as  the  warriors 
of  their  noble  country.  They  were  sentenced  to  nine  years' 
hard  labor. 

Next  on  the  roll  of  martyrs  come  Bocharoff  and  Cherni- 
avsky,  two  young  men,  one  of  whom  was  condemned  to  ten 
and  the  other  to  fifteen  years'  penal  servitude  for  taking 
part  in  tlie  peaceful  demonstration  in  Kazan  Scjuarc. 

Peter  Alexeeff,  another  victim,  was  a  peasant  whose  bold 
sonorous  words  at  his  trial  startled  the  judges,  and  resounded 
in  the  hearts  of  his  companions  like  a  battle-call.  Convicted 
of  spreading  subversive  ideas  among  his  fellow-workmen, 
Alexeeff  was  sentenced  to  ten  years'  penal  servitude. 

Donezky,  Gerasimoff,  AlexandrolT,  Elezky,  Papin,  Mour- 
6* 


130  EUSSIA   UI^DER  THE  TZAES. 

aysky — their  shadows,  too,  pass  before  us  in  this  abode  of 
gloom.  All  are  there.  All  this  intelligence,  all  this  bound- 
less love  for  the  unfortunate,  all  their  striving  to  raise  the 
lot  of  the  lowly,  all  are  buried  in  that  granite  tomb,  doomed 
to  languish  and  decay. 

But  there  are  dwellers  in  that  sinister  prison-house  whom 
I  have  still  to  mention.  I  have  said  nothing  of  the  director 
and  chief — its  right  arm  and  moving  spirit — the  man  Griz- 
elevski.  He  displayed  his  peculiar  talents  and  gained  his 
reputation  in  Poland,  where  he  was  the  colleague  and  col- 
laborateur  of  Mouravieff,  the  hangman.  He  has  shed  the 
blood  of  Poles  ;  he  now  sucks  the  blood  of  Eussians.  It  is 
curious  to  note,  by  way  of  parenthesis,  the  strong  predilec- 
tion shown  by  the  Government  for  the  butchers  of  Poland. 
Paniutin,  Grizelevski,  Kopnin  (Grizelevski's  destined  suc- 
cessor), and  a  crowd  of  gaolers  in  Siberia,  won  their  spurs  in 
Poland. 

Promoted  by  special  favor  of  Prince  Krapotkin  to  the 
lucrative  and  honorable  post  of  chief  of  the  great  prison  of 
Novo-Belgorod,  Grizelevski  has  shown  that  he  fully  under- 
stands what'  is  expected  of  him.  By  petty  vexations  without 
number,  contrived  with  no  other  end  than  to  torment  the 
prisoners,  and  by  a  boundless  brutality,  he  renders  their  lives 
a  perfect  hell. 

Proofs  and  instances  of  his  tjrrannies  are  only  too  abundant. 

One  evening  in  February,  1878,  Plotnikoff  was  walking 
sadly  to  and  fro  in  his  little  cell,  reciting  in  a  low  voice  some 
verses  of  his  favorite  poet,  when  the  door  burst  suddenly 
open,  and  the  director  appeared  on  the  threshold. 

"  How  dare  you  recite  verses  !"  he  exclaimed  with  a  furi- 
ous gesture.  ''  Know  you  not  that  absolute  silence  must 
reign  here  ?    I  will  have  you  put  in  irons." 

"I  have  already  finished  my  probation  term,*  and  accord- 

*  A  preliminary  period  lasting  several  years,  during  which  the  prisoner 
is  treated  with  the  gi'eatest  severity. 


AFTER  JUDGMENT.  131 

ing  to  the  law  I  can  no  longer  be  put  in  irons,"  answered 
the  prisoner,  courteously,  ''and  the  less  so  that  I  am  ill  : 
you  can  ask  the  doctor." 

"  Ah  !  you  want  to  discuss,"  cried  Cerberus ;  "  very  well ! 
I  will  teach  you  the  law.     Bring  the  irons  at  once." 

The  irons  were  brought,  the  young  man  seized,  hustled 
about,  dragged  to  the  office  and  manacled. 

Another  incident  of  the  same  kind  (the  victim  in  this  in- 
stance being  Alexandroff)  befell  in  the  mouth  of  June, 
1877.  Towards  nightfall  the  song  of  some  peasants  return- 
ing from  their  work  was  heard  in  the  distance.  The  song 
found  an  echo  in  the  aching  heart  of  the  prisoner.  For  a 
moment  he  forgets  himself  and  commits  a  dire  offence — he 
sings.  Informed  of  this  extraordinary  fact,  the  all-powerful 
master  hurries  in  person  to  the  scene  of  the  crime.  The 
criminal  has  long  been  silent,  and  is  lying  on  his  bed — i.  e., 
on  a  piece  of  felt  without  covering  or  i)illow.     He  gets  iip. 

''  Who  allowed  you  to  sing  ?  Answer  !  Ah,  you  forget 
who  and  where  you  are  !    Well,  I  will  remind  you." 

Before  the  prisoner,  taken  aback  by  this  unexpected  ad- 
dress, had  time  to  answer  a  single  word,  the  director  gave 
him  a  blow  on  the  face,  accompanying  the  cowardly  deed 
with  a  volley  of  oaths. 

On  another  occasion  Grizelevsky  flew  at  Gerasimoff,  for- 
merly a  student. 

"  What,"  he  shouted,  "you  have  dared  to  be  rude  to  a 
gaoler  ?" 

"  I  said  nothing  rude,  sir,"  answered  GerasimofT,  quietly. 

**  But  you  treated  him  as  an  equal,  and  he  is  your  im- 
mediate superior,  whom  you  are  bound  to  venerate  and 
respect.  Do  you  hear  ?  Venerate  and  respect.  You  are 
alwavs  to  remember  that  vou  are  not  a  man,  but  a  convict, 
that  you  are  not  free,  but  in  gaol.  You  have  no  right  to 
expect  being  treated  with  deference.  If  a  stick  is  set  up 
before  you,  and  you  are  told  to  bow  down  to  it,  you  must  do 


132  RUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

SO  without  a  word.  Do  not  forget  what  I  have  told  you,  for 
if  another  time  you  allow  yourself  to  be  impertinent  to  your 
warder,  I  will  skin  you  from  head  to  foot  with  rods.  Do 
you  understand  ?    From  head  to  foot  !  '*' 

And  for  what  offence  had  the  poor  prisoner  incurred  these 
brutal  threats  and  vile  insults  ?  Because  he,  the  convict, 
had  not  yet  learnt  to  treat  his  warder,  a  common  illiterate 
soldier,  with  sufficient  veneration,  and  because  in  answer  to 
the  lattcr's  question,  **  What  do  you  want  ? "  answered, 
''  Bring  *  me  some  water,"  instead  of,  "'  Would  you  have  the 
goodness  to  bring  me  some  water  ?  " 

It  might  be  supposed  that  walking  being  a  pleasure  and 
not  a  duty,  the  prisoners  would  be  free  to  walk  or  not  as  they 
might  think  fit.  But  when  the  same  Gerasimoff,  being 
rather  late,  and  exasperated  by  the  brutal  calls  of  the  gaoler, 
refused  to  go  out,  the  director,  on  being  informed  of  this  act 
of  insubordination,  gave  him  the  following  paternal  advice  : 
*'  Why  do  you  not  obey  the  gaoler  ?  If  you  are  shut  up — 
you  must  remain  ;  ordered  to  go  out — you  must  go  ;  if  told 
to  walk — you  must  walk.  That  is  all  you  have  to  do,  and 
if  you  disobey,  I'll  have  you  flogged." 

I  will  not  tire  my  readers  by  multiplying  these  descrip- 
tions. I  will  only  beg  them  to  stop  one  moment  at  this  last 
cell.  The  inmate  is  an  old  man,  and  if  he  were  not  without 
beard  and  moustache  and  his  head  half  shaven  (as  stupid 
and  barbarous  a  practice  as  that  of  mutilating  the  face),  it 
would  be  seen  that  his  hair  is  grey.  His  hands  are  in  gyve?, 
he  is  dressed  in  a  grey  jacket,  and  sits  near  the  table,  ab- 
sorbed in  melancholy  thought.  And  then  from  behind  a 
rough  voice  bids  him  "  Good-day."  lie  rises,  and  slightly 
bowing  his  head,  answers  "  Good-day,  sir." 

*  Speaking  to  him  in  the  2d  per.  sing.  Tutoiement  of  prisoners  by 
gaolors  is  universal,  but  the  prisoner  must  uever  so  address  any  of  the 
officials,  not  even  common  warders. 


AFTER   JUDGMENT.  133 

Could  there  be  anything  more  polite  and  modest  ? 
And  yet  this  quiet  answer  infuriates  the  foul-mouthed 
director. 

*'  How  dare  you  answer  me  thus,  beast  that  you  are  ?  "  he 
cries.     *'  Do  you  forget  that  I  am  your  superior  ?  " 

And  this  because,  according  to  the  military  rule,  soldiers 
are  not  allowed  to  answer  their  superior  officers  as  men  do 
among  themselves.  They  have  to  say,  *'  I  hope  you  are 
well,"  adding  the  title  of  the  officer.  For  this  infraction  of 
the  rules  Elezki  (it  is  he  of  whom  I  speak)  was  thrown  into 
the  punishment  cell.  Has  the  English  reader  any  idea 
what  punishment  cells  in  the  Central  Prisons  are  like  ? 
They  are  cages  at  the  back  of  the  cabinets  d'aisance,  and  so 
dark  and  so  narrow  that  they  look,  without  exaggeration, 
like  coffins — coffins,  moreover,  that  for  a  man  of  middle 
height  would  be  far  too  small.  Prisoners  cannot  stand  up- 
right in  them,  and  after  a  few  days  in  this  fetid  hole  even  a 
strong  man  is  seized  with  giddiness,  is  unable  to  stand,  and 
seems  to  have  passed  through  a  serious  illness. 

Even  when  they  are  innocent  of  offence,  Grizelevsky  does 
not  leave  his  victims  in  peace.  Either  out  of  pure  malice, 
or  without  any  motive  whatever,  he  is  always  annoying  and 
tormenting  them.  One  day,  when  he  was  visiting  the  cells, 
he  found  on  a  prisoner's  table  a  French  exercise  book  he 
himself  had  permitted  the  man  to  have. 

"  What  !"  he  said  with  a  cynical  laugh,  "you  are  learn- 
ing French,  are  you  ?  To  jirepare  for  a  journey  to  Switzer- 
land, I  suppose  ?  " 

And  he  took  the  book  away  with  him,  thus  robbing  the 
wretched  captive  of  a  priceless  solace,  and  depriving  him  of 
an  occupation  which,  by  exercising  his  mind,  helped  him  to 
support  the  hea\'y  burden  of  his  solitude.  If  you  had  asked 
the  creature  why  he  did  this — why  he  so  harshly  withdrew 
a  favor  which  he  had  only  just  granted,  he  would  have 
been  unable  to  answer  you,  except  that  he  so  acted  because 


134  RUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

it  pleased  him.  It  was  a  sudden  caprice  ;  he  wanted  to 
show  the  prisoner  his  power.  When  he  is  in  a  particularly 
bad  humor,  or  things  have  gone  wrong  at  home,  he  orders 
the  sick  to  be  deprived  of  their  beds  (sick  prisoners  are 
allowed  a  mattress,  a  counterpane,  and  a  pillow),  leaving 
them  only  the  felt  rug,  which  is  the  normal  sleeping  accom- 
modation of  the  political  prisoners  of  Belgorod. 

But,  it  may  be  urged,  these  are  merely  tyrannical  eccen- 
tricities of  a  brutal  and  ignorant  soldier,  demoralized  by 
despotic  power  and  left  without  control.  The  superior 
administrators  cannot  j^ossibly  know  of  these  doings ;  if 
they  did,  they  would  surely  put  a  stop  to  them. 

Let  us  go  a  step  higher,  then. 

The  person  immediately  above  the  director  is  the  governor 
of  the  province.  For  some  slight  infraction  of  the  rules  the 
director  ordered  a  political  jmsoner,  affected  with  consump- 
tion, and  who  had  finished  his  "probation  time,"  to  be  put 
in  irons.  Exasperated  by  this  cruelty,  several  of  his  com- 
panions had  the  audacity  to  inform  the  director  that  they 
would  complain  to  the  governor  of  his  brutal  and  unjust 
conduct,  giving  all  the  facts,  etc.  The  director  could  not 
stop  a  letter  to  his  superior,  but  he  could  punish  the  prison- 
ers for  writing  it.  So  he  deprived  them  of  books,  forbade 
several  to  go  out  for  exercise,  and  shortened  the  exercise 
time  for  others.  Finally,  he  had  the  sky-lights  in  the  cell- 
doors,  used  for  purposes  of  ventilation,  closed  and  nailed 
down.  When  Seriakow,  who  was  ill,  said  he  could  not 
breathe,  the  director  expressed  the  wish  that  he  might 
choke  as  quickly  as  possible. 

But  most  interesting  of  all  was  the  decision  of  the  gov- 
ernor. While  admitting  that  the  director  had  no  right  to 
put  a  prisoner  who  had  served  his  probation  time  in  irons, 
he  nevertheless  ordered  him,  together  with  all  the  other 
prisoners  who  had  signed  the  petition,  to  be  manacled,  on 
the  ground  that  they  had  insulted  the  director  by  their 


AFTER  JUDGMENT.  J  35 

complaint ;  and  gave  them  each,  further,  from  one  to  three 
days  in  the  black-hole  ! 

Let  us  go  another  step  higher. 

In  the  summer  of  1877,  the  Minister  of  Justice  visited 
the  prison  of  Belgorod  in  person.  He  entered  the  cell  of  Plot- 
nikolf,  who  was  almost  dying,  and  who  told  hira,  if  the  hor- 
rible conditions  of  actual  prison  regime  were  not  changed, 
all  the  prisoners  would  ere  long  pass  from  this  provisional 
to  an  eternal  tomb.  On  this,  Count  Pahlen,  with  the  delib- 
eration and  German  accent  peculiar  to  him,  pronounced 
these  ferocious  words:  "So  much  the  better!  Suffer  I 
You  have  done  Russia  much  harm." 

At  this  epoch,  be  it  remembered,  the  Russian  Socialists 
had  done  nothing  more  than  distribute  Socialist  pamphlets  ! 
For  no  Terrorist,  properly  speaking,  was  ever  sent  to  the 
Central  Prison.  The  last  group  of  political  convicts  for 
which  Xovo- Belgorod  opened  its  doors,  were  the  condemned 
of  the  Kovalsky  trial — Svitych,  Vitashevsky,  and  two 
others.* 

With  the  setting  in  of  the  Terrorist  period,  the  position 
of  the  prisoners  of  Novo-Belgorod  became  more  and  more 
intolerable.  The  Government  looked  on  them  as  hostages, 
and  after  every  blow  struck  by  the  Terrorists,  discharged  on 
their  devoted  heads  all  the  vials  of  its  impotent  rage. 

*  To  be  quite  exact,  I  should  say  that  these  men  cannot  fairly  be 
described  as  propagandists  ;  on  the  other  hand,  they  were  certainly  not 
Terrorists.  Though  more  than  the  one,  they  were  less  than  the  other. 
They  came  to  the  front  during  the  short  interval  between  tlie  end  ol 
the  propagandist  and  the  beginning  of  the  terrorist  periods.  Bcfoii 
deciding  to  punish,  by  attacks  on  the  agents  of  authority,  deeds  such 
as  those  I  have  been  describing,  and  preventing  the  infliction  of  further 
cruelties  on  their  friends,  the  revolutionary  party  resolved  to  take  the 
defensive,  and  resist  the  police  whenever  the  latter  sought  to  arrest 
them.  This  was  the  time  when  defence  of  the  domicile  by  force  of 
arms  was  proclaimed  as  a  duty.  The  offence  of  Svitych  and  Vita- 
shevsky was  taking  part  in  one  of  these  acts  of  resistance. 


136  RUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

"You  shall  pay  dearly  for  this,"  said,  on  each  occasion, 
the  director. 

When  Mezenzoff  was  killed,  all  their  books  were  taken 
away  ;  when  Krapotkin  was  killed,  they  were  put  in  irons  ; 
and  when  somebody  else  was  killed,  all  the  prisoners'  par- 
ents were  exiled  from  the  province  of  Kharkoff,  and  forbid- 
den to  return  to  their  homes.  After  the  first  attempt  on 
the  Emperors  life  some  of  these  unfortunates  were  even 
sent  to  Siberia. 

Another  piece  of  petty  torture  by  which  the  prisoners 
were  vicariously  punished,  was  closing  the  ventilating  ori- 
fices in  their  cells.  In  the  end  nearly  all  were  closed,  and 
they  could  hardly  breathe.  It  seemed  as  if  the  director 
wanted  to  suffocate  them. 

In  short,  the  system  adopted  in  the  Central  Prison  is  sub- 
stantially the  same  as  that  practised  in  the  House  of  Pre- 
ventative Detention.  The  same  isolation,  the  same  denial 
of  opportunity  for  active  exercise,  the  same  deprivation  of 
useful  work,  mental  and  physical,  followed  by  the  same 
results — loss  of  health,  phthisis,  scurvy,  and  general  bodily 
decay  ;  with  this  difference,  that  prisoners  awaiting  their 
trial  may  cherish  hopes  of  acquittal,  and  when  brought 
up  for  judgment  can  expose  the  hardships  they  have  endured, 
and  stigmatize  as  they  desire  those  by  whom  they  were 
inflicted.  But  the  others  have  no  such  consolation  ;  hope 
for  them  is  no  more;  protest  they  cannot,  and  complaint 
serves  only  to  intensify  their  sufferings.  Altogether  at  the 
mercy  of  their  gaolers,  they  are  continually  vexed  with 
brutalities  and  overwhelmed  with  insults.  At  the  capital, 
moreover,  prisoners  under  preventative  detention  can  commu- 
nicate secretly  with  their  friends  outside,  and  are  cheered  by 
the  expectation  of  meeting  their  enemies  face  to  face,  as 
warriors  are  cheered  when  they  look  forward  to  the  day  of 
battle.  The  others  have  none  of  these  advantages  ;  cut  off 
from   human   fellowship,  and  oppressed  with  the  deadly 


AFTER  JUDGMENT.  137 

monotony  of  their  sombre  existence,  infirm  in  health  and 
weakened  in  mind,  they  have  nothing  to  look  forward  to  but 
a  life  of  suffering  and  death  before  the  expiration  of  their 
sentence. 

I  have  already  called  attention  to  the  effects  on  the  health 
of  prisoners  of  the  system  of  solitary  confinement,  as  prac- 
tised in  the  House  of  Detention.  At  Xovo-Belgorod,  where 
the  conditions  are  much  less  favorable,  the  consequences 
are  naturally  far  more  deplorable.  Phthisis  and  typhoid 
fever  are  always  among  them.  If  a  half  or  three-quarters  of 
them  still  survive,  their  survival  is  in  no  wise  due  to  the  care 
or  tenderness  of  their  custodians,  who  have  left  nothing 
undone  to  shorten  their  days,  but  to  the  fine  climate  and 
salubrious  air  with  which  nature  has  blessed  the  Ukraine, 
the  laud  of  their  captivity.  Nevertheless,  of  the  twenty 
young  men  in  the  prime  of  life — their  ages  ranging  from 
twenty-three  to  thirty — six  have  gone  to  their  long  home 
since  their  incarceration  in  the  Central  Prison  some  four 
years  ago.  Five  died  within  the  prison  walls ;  the  sixth 
(Dmokhovsky)  succumbed  while  being  conveyed  to  the  bag- 
nios of  Siberia.  But  the  most  terrible  scourge  endured  by 
the  victims  of  solitary  confinement,  a  scourge  against  which 
favorable  climatic  conditions  are  of  no  avail,  is  insanity.  At 
the  time  when  the  second  of  our  chroniclers  completed  his 
memoir  he  says  that  in  the  right-hand  cells,  one  of  which  he 
occupied,  there  were  five  madmen  among  fourteen  inmates 
— more  than  a  third.  He  gives  their  names — Plotnikoff, 
Donezky,  Botcharoff,  Bogoluboff,  and  Sokolovsky.  The 
two  first  were  melancholy  mad  ;  the  tliree  others  raving 
lunatics,  who  filled  the  little  cellular  prison  with  fierce 
bowlings  and  wild  cries,  heartrending  sobs  and  maniac.il 
laughter.  Words  cannot  picture,  the  imagination  is  power- 
less to  conceive,  the  horror  of  life  in  that  bedlam  for  those 
who,  though  still  of  sound  mind,  are  continually  haunted 
by  the  fear  that  their  stricken  comi)anions'  fate  will  soon 


138  RUSSIA   UXDER  THE  TZARS. 

be  theirs,  and  see  ever  before  them  the  shadow  of  their 
coming  doom.  All  their  efforts — and,  as  may  be  supposed, 
they  were  urgent  and  persistent — to  obtain  the  removal  of 
the  unfortunates  to  an  asylum  were  for  a  long  time  fruitless, 
and  never  entirely  succeeded.  Botcharoff,  one  of  the  more 
violent  lunatics,  remained  months  in  his  cell  raving  mad 
before  they  took  him  away,  and  it  was  only  after  long  impor- 
tuning, both  on  the  part  of  the  doctor  and  the  prisoners, 
that  the  director  allowed  him  to  be  transferred — but  not  to 
an  asylum,  only  to  the  neighboring  central  prison  of  Bori- 
soglebsk,  where  he  shortly  afterwards  died.  As  for  Gamoff, 
they  took  not  the  least  trouble  about  him,  and  he  died  mad 
in  his  cell.  Plotuikoff,  it  is  true,  was  removed  to  an  asylum, 
but  only  when  his  state  had  become  so  desperate  that  it  was 
evident  he  had  not  long  to  live,  and  he  survived  his  re- 
moval only  a  few  weeks. 

And  this  is  not  the  worst.  The  way  in  which  these  poor 
lunatics  are  treated  by  the  ofl&cers  of  the  prison  is  barbarous 
beyond  belief.  An  access  of  madness  is  punished  as  if  it 
were  an  act  of  wilful  insubordination.  They  are  kicked  and 
cuffed  without  mercy,  and,  when  they  persist  in  making  a 
noise,  thrown  violently  down  on  the  floor  of  their  cells  and 
compelled  to  lie  there.  This  within  the  hearing  of  the 
other  prisoners,  who  are  rendered  still  more  wretched  by  the 
spectacle  of  so  much  suffering  and  cruelty,  and  the  con- 
sciousness of  their  inability  either  to  prevent  the  one  or 
avenge  the  other. 

The  insane  receive  no  indulgence  in  matters  of  discipline. 
They  are  compelled  to  observe  the  same  rules  as  the  sane, 
and  undergo  the  same  penalties  for  neglect  or  disobedience. 
Bogoluboff,  condemned,  for  the  part  he  took  in  the  demon- 
stration in  Kazan  Place,  to  fifteen  years'  hard  labor  (the 
same  who  was  flogged  by  order  of  General  Trepoff,  and 
avenged  by  the  pistol  of  Vera  Zassoulitch),  had  a  fixed  idea 
that  everybody  about  him  was  in  a  conspiracy  to  take  his 


AFTER   JUDGMENT.  139 

life.  Yet  lie  was  compelled  to  be  shaved  just  as  the  oth- 
ers were.  When  the  barber  came  to  perform  his  ofliccs  the 
poor  wretch  screamed  with  terror  aud  resisted  with  the  fury 
of  despair.  But  it  was  of  no  use.  The  warders  throttled 
and  pinioned  him,  and  he  was  shaved  whether  he  would  or 
no. 

When  in  April,  1879,  a  general,  deputed  by  the  new  gov- 
ernor of  the  province,  made  an  official  visit  to  the  Central 
Prison,  asked  the  prisoners  the  stereotyped  question,  "  Have 
you  anything  to  say  to  me — any  request  to  make  ?  "  one 
of  the  Circassians,  Prince  Zizianoff,  made  this  answer  : 

*'  Yes,  General.  I  ask  a  favor  which  you  may  easily  grant. 
I  ask  to  be  condemned  to  death.  Living  here — which  means 
slowly  dying — is  more  than  I  can  bear.  I  beseech  you  to 
put  me  out  of  my  misery.     I  beg  of  you  to  let  me  die." 

This  answer,  which  I  translate  literally,  is  a  full  summing 
up,  a  complete  picture.     Comment  were  useless. 

So  we  leave  the  Central  Prison,  with  its  horrors  and  suf- 
ferings, its  martyred  prisoners  and  tyrant  gaolers  ;  and  I  in- 
vite the  reader  to  accomijany  me  to  another  region  and 
other  scenes.  But  I  warn  him  to  brace  up  his  nerves,  for 
the  tale  I  am  about  to  unfold  is  still  more  terrible  than  that 
to  which  he  has  just  listened. 


CHAPTEK  XIX. 

THE  TROUBETZKOI   RAVELIK. 

On  the  banks  of  the  Neva,  over  against  the  Imperial 
Palace,  stands  the  Eussian  Bastile — the  Fortress  of  Peter 
and  Paul.  An  immense  building,  wide  and  flat,  surmounted 
by  a  meagre,  tapering,  attenuated  spire  like  the  end  of  a 
gigantic  syringe.  As  it  is  situate  between  the  two  quarters 
of  the  town,  the  public  may,  during  the  day,  pass  through 
the  fortress,  entering  by  a  narrow  defile  of  sombre  and  tor- 
tuous vaults,  occupied  by  sentinels,  with  the  images  of 
saints,  holding  burning  tapers,  in  the  niches.  But  at  sun- 
set all  is  closed,  and  when  night  broods  over  the  capital,  and 
thousands  of  lights  illumine  the  quays  of  the  swift-flowing 
Neva,  the  fortress  alone  remains  in  darkness,  like  a  huge 
black  maw  ever  open  to  swallow  up  all  that  is  noblest  and 
best  in  the  unhappy  city  and  country  which  it  curses  with 
its  presence.  No  living  sound  comes  to  break  the  grim 
silence  that  hangs  over  tliis  place  of  desolation.  And  yet 
the  lugubrious  edifice  has  a  voice  that  vibrates  far  beyond 
this  vast  tomb  of  unknown  martyrs,  buried  by  night  in  the 
ditches,  far  beyond  the  oubliettes,  where  lie  those  whose 
turn  is  to  come  next.  Every  quarter  of  an  hour  the  prison 
clock  repeats  a  tedious  irritating  air,  always  the  same — a 
psalm  in  praise  of  the  Tzar. 

Here,  indeed,  is  the  altar  of  despotism.  From  its  very 
foundations  tlie  Fortress  of  Peter  and  Paul  has  been  the 
principal  political  prison  of  the  empire.  But  there  is  a  wide 
difference  in  the  character  and  position  of  the  unfortunates 
who  have  been  its  involuntary  tenants.     In  past  centuries 


THE   TROUBETZKOI    RATELIX.  141 

the  chief  sojourners  were  court-conspirators  on  their  way 
to  Siberia  or  the  scaffold.  One  of  the  tirst  was  the  unhappy 
Prince  Alexis,  son  of  Peter  the  Great,  presumptive  heir  to 
the  crown.  They  still  show  you  the  cell  where  the  poor 
wretch,  after  being  put  to  the  torture,  was  strangled  by 
his  father's  order.  Then  came  generals,  senators,  princes, 
and  princesses  ;  among  others  the  celebrated  Tarakanora, 
drowned  during  the  floods  that  inundated  the  subterranean 
cells  of  the  fortress.  Since  the  definitive  establishment  of 
the  present  dynast}-,  at  the  end  of  the  last  century,  palace 
conspiracies  and  coups  d'etat  have  ceased.  The  fortress  re- 
mained empty  till  1825,  when  it  received  the  elite  of  the 
Eussian  nobility  and  army — the  Decembrists,  who  had  not 
sought  to  overthrow  one  man  in  order  to  put  themselves  in 
his  place,  but  to  destroy  the  principle  of  autocracy  itself. 

Two  generations  passed — and  again  the  picture  is  changed. 
Discontent  with  the  present  regime  has  deepened  and  spread 
among  all  classes.  It  is  no  longer  the  army,  but  the  flower 
of  the  Russian  people  that  is  rising  against  desi)otism  ;  it  is 
no  longer  an  isolated  attack,  but  an  implacable  war,  without 
truce  or  intermission,  between  the  Russian  nation  and  its 
Government.  The  fortress  is  crowded  with  prisoners.  Dur- 
ing the  last  twenty  years  hundreds  have  passed  through  it, 
and  are  being  followed  by  more  hundreds,  without  pause  or 
let. 

But  until  lately  the  fortress  was  a  *' preventive"  rather 
than  a  penitentiary  prison  ;  those  accused  of  political  crimes 
were  kept  here  pending  their  trial,  after  which  they  were 
usually  sent  to  the  bagnios  of  Siberia.  There  has,  neverthe- 
less, been  here  at  all  times  a  certain  number  of  prisoners — 
and  these  the  most  wretched  and  rigorously  guarded— sent 
without  any  formality  of  trial,  simply  on  a  personal  order 
of  the  Tzar,  and  kept  in  prison  for  years  together,  often  for 
life. 

In  the  ravelin  of  Alexis  there  is,  or  was  in  1883,  a  mys- 


143  RUSSIA  UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

terious  prisoner,  a  woman  dying  of  consumption,  of  whom 
no  one — neither  gaolers  nor  political  prisoners — knows  the 
crime  or  eyen  the  name,  and  who  in  the  prison  registers  is 
merely  designated  by  the  number  of  the  cell  she  occupies. 

In  the  not  very  remote  past,  before  the  bureaucracy  had 
succeeded  in  destroying  all  individuality,  even  in  the 
despotism  itself,  the  number  of  prisoners  in  the  last-named 
category  was  much  greater  than  at  present.  The  fortress, 
Vfith.  its  flinty  dungeons,  was  always  ready  to  swallow  up  all 
who  might  make  themselves  disagi*eeable  to  the  master  of  the 
hour.  For  Russia,  being  a  Christian  country,  there  were 
scruples  about  adopting  the  rough  Oriental  expedient  of 
sewing  up  objectionable  persons  in  canvas  bags  and  casting 
them  into  the  sea.  In  the  course  of  ages,  and  under  a 
despotic  regime,  this  use  of  Peter  and  Paul  naturally  became 
more  frequent  and  regular,  and  its  advantages  better  under- 
stood. The  point  never  lost  sight  of  was  the  necessity  of 
seeing  that  those  who  were  buried  alive  in  its  gloomy 
recesses,  depositaries  of  dark  and  shameful  secrets,  both  of 
the  masters  and  their  acolytes,  should  never  have  the  chance 
of  revealing  them  to  living  soul.  Hence  the  practice  of 
covering  a  man's  identity  with  a  number  as  with  an  iron 
mask,  and  concealing  his  name,  origin,  and  antecedents,  a 
practice,  however,  of  ancient  date.  Those  of  our  historians 
who  are  allowed  to  search  the  archives  of  the  secret  police 
often  find  orders  for  the  incarceration  and  detention  of  per- 
sons whose  names  the  director  of  the  fortress  is  forbidden, 
at  his  \)Qn\,  to  demand,  or  to  ask  any  questions  concerning 
them.  The  warders  who  took  one  of  these  men  his  food 
went  in  fear,  and  hnstcned  away  as  quickly  as  possible,  lest 
a  chance  word  spoken  by  the  mysterious  prisoner  might 
bring  him  into  the  torture  chamber  of  the  suspicious  secret 
chancellery. 

No  wonder  that  there  has  always  been  an  abundance  of 
strange  stories  and  fantastic   rumors  about   this   awesome 


THE   TROUBETZKOI   RAVELIX.  143 

prison-hoiTse,  and  that  the  popular  imagination,  taking  liold 
of  them,  has  added  legend  to  legend.  One  arose  out  of  the 
revolt  of  the  Decembrists,  which,  as  the  people  believed, 
was  favored  by  the  Tzar's  eldest  brother,  the  Grand  Duke 
Constantine,  heir-presumptive  to  the  throne,  and  to  whom 
the  country  swore  allegiance  before  it  became  known  that 
he  had  secretlv  abdicated  in  favor  of  Nicolas.  The  rising 
created  the  myth  of  the  Grand  Duke  being  shut  up  in  tho 
fortress,  a  gray,  decrepit  old  man,  with  a  long  white  beard 
reaching  to  his  knees,  whose  one  thought  and  desire  was  to 
redeem  the  peasants  from  slavery.  Years  after  the  real 
Constantine,  who  led  a  savage  and  brutal  life,  had  joined 
his  ancestors,  the  legend  still  lived  in  the  popular  imagina- 
tion. 

But  the  spirit  of  the  age,  and  the  crowds  who  now  fill  the 
fortress,  are  not  propitious  for  the  creation  of  phantoms, 
and  myth  and  legend  are  evolved  no  more.  The  reality  is 
enough.  On  the  other  hand,  the  habits  and  ideas  formed 
during  a  century  and  a  half  have  been  transmitted  from 
one  generation  of  gaolers  to  another,  all  animated  by  the 
same  spirit.  In  the  oflScers  of  the  fortress  the  Government 
possesses  an  incomparable  staff  of  warders,  as  well  fitted  for 
their  duties  as  the  mutes  of  some  Grand  Siguier's  seraglio. 

The  fortress  differs  from  most  other  gaols,  in  that  every- 
thing about  it — personnel,  organization,  and  description — 
are  strictly  military.  There  are  no  civil  and  salaried 
warders,  as  in  the  Preventative  and  Central  Prisons.  All 
the  duties  are  performed  by  soldiers  and  gendarmes,  over 
whose  heads  is  ever  hanging  the  Damocles  sword  of  the 
military  code.  The  charge  over  prisoners,  whom  it  is 
desired  to  keep  strictly  in  solitary  confinement,  is  confided 
to  gaolers  carefully  selected  from  among  their  fellows  by  a 
system  of  supervision  and  mutual  espionage.  This  is  tho 
more  easily  done  as  the  fortress,  like  all  similar  con- 
structions built  on  the  design  of  Vauban,  is  divided  into 


144  RUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

bastions,  curtains,  and  ravelins,  every  one  of  -whicli  forms  a 
totally  distinct  prison,  with  its  own  director  and  staff  of 
warders,  who  are  never  changed,  live  quite  by  themselves, 
and  seldom  come  in  contact  with  any  officers  of  the  prison 
not  belonging  to  their  own  section. 

The  fortress,  moreover,  differs  from  other  prisons  in  the 
details  of  its  organization,  the  strictness  of  its  supervision, 
and  the  severity  of  its  discipline.  Thus,  whilst  in  most 
other  gaols  it  is  considered  sufficient  to  prevent  prisoners 
from  communicating  with  each  other,  in  the  fortress  they 
are  not  allowed  to  communicate  even  with  the  warders.  The 
latter  are  forbidden  to  answer  any  question  put  to  them  by 
a  prisoner,  however  trivial  or  innocent  it  may  be.  A 
friendly  greeting,  an  observation  on  the  weather,  an  inquiry 
about  the  hour,  it  is  all  the  same — no  answer.  In  silence 
they  come  to  your  wicket,  in  silence  they  hand  in  your 
bread,  in  silence  they  depart.  At  the  time  fixed  for  the 
daily  walk  they  open  in  silence  your  cell  door,  and  in  silence 
lead  you  to  the  yard  set  apart  for  exercise.  Silently  they 
watch  you  take  your  "  solitary  constitutional,"  and  when  it 
is  finished,  reconduct  you  to  your  cell  without  having  once 
opened  their  mouths.  *'  They,"  because  there  are  always 
two,  the  warders  of  the  fortress  being  absolutely  forbidden 
to  enter  a  prisoners  cell,  or  even  go  near  a  prisoner,  under 
any  pretext  whatever,  except  in  pairs.  The  advantages  of 
this  regulation  are  self-evident ;  it  acts  as  a  check,  as  well 
on  prisoners  as  on  officers,  and  facilitates  that  system  of 
mutual  espionage  among  the  members  of  its  staff  which  is 
one  of  the  most  characteristic  features  of  the  Eussiau 
Bastilc. 

The  vast  size  of  the  building  and  its  peculiar  construction 
enable  the  Government  to  do  here  what  they  have  vainly 
attempted  to  do  elsewhere — completely  isolate  the  prisoners 
among  themselves.  In  the  House  of  Preventative  Detention 
the  numerous  iron  pipes  which  run  through  every  part  of 


THE  TROUBETZKOI   RAVELIN^.  145 

the  building,  permit  the  inmates,  even  when  separated  by  a 
considerable  interval,  to  exchange  messages  ;  while  in  the 
Central  Prison  the  cells  are  so  small  and  the  walls  so  thin 
that  it  is  imi^ossible  to  prevent  the  prisoners  from  talking 
by  raps  and,  when  they  accidentally  meet,  by  spoken  words. 
In  the  fortress  it  is  altogether  different.  The  walls  of  the 
casements,  laid  in  concrete  and  built  of  brick,  are  of  a 
thickness  that  renders  audible  rappings,  and  consequently 
communications,  almost  impossible.  To  make  them  alto- 
gether so  it  was  at  one  time  (1877-8)  proposed  to  deaden  the 
sounds  by  coating  the  walls  with  felt.  But  as  the  adoption 
of  this  expedient,  besides  being  expensive,  would  have  made 
the  cells  drier  and  warmer,  and  the  prisoners  more  comfort- 
able, it  was  renounced  in  favor  of  a  plan  which  possessed 
neither  of  these  drawbacks.  Prisoners  were  put  only  in 
every  alternate  cell,  the  intervening  cells  being  either  left 
empty  or  occupied  by  gendarmes.  This  entailed  some  re- 
duction in  the  number  of  their  inmates  ;  but  the  fortress  is 
very  large,  and  those  who  remained  were  better  cloistered. 
As  to  prisoners  whom  it  was  desired  to  isolate  absolutely, 
special  arrangements,  were  made. 

To  give  an  idea  how  complete  these  arrangements  are, 
how  well  the  great  State  prison  of  the  Tzar  keeps  its  secrets, 
a  single  examjDle  will  suffice.  Netchaef,  surrendered  by 
Switzerland,  and  condemned  as  an  ordinary  law-breaker  to 
twenty  years  at  the  hulks,  instead  of  being  sent  thither,  was 
sent  to  the  fortress  (1872),  and  so  closely  guarded  and  im- 
mured that  for  seven  years  none  of  his  friends  knew  what 
had  become  of  him ;  albeit  during  this  period  incessant 
inquiries  were  made  by  many  who  were  interested  in  his 
fate,  and  hundreds  of  prisoners  entered  and  left  the  fortress. 
Not  until  1880  was  the  place  of  his  reclusion  discovered, 
through  the  intermediation  of  Shiraeff,  a  prisoner  in  the 
Alexis  ravelin,  who  had  secret  relations  with  the  outer 
world,  and  to  whom  Netchaef,  who  was  also  confined  in  the 
7 


146  RUSSIA    UNDER  THE  TZARS 

ravelin,  had  contrived  to  send  a  message  by  a  friendly 
gaoler. 

As  may  be  supposed,  the  treatment  of  prisoners  incarce- 
rated in  this  Russian  Bastile  does  not  err  on  the  side  of 
leniency,  nor  did  it  become  more  humane  during  the  last 
Terrorist  period,  Vviiich  was  precisely  the  time  when  its  dark 
and  lonesome  cells  received  the  greatest  number  of  inmates. 
If  in  the  Central  Prison,  thousands  of  miles  from  the  scene 
of  action,  the  propagandists  were  made  to  "  pay  clearly  "  for 
every  Terrorist  attempt,  it  may  be  taken  for  granted  that 
those  of  them  who  were  in  bonds  at  St.  Petersburg 
would  not  fare  better  at  the  hands  of  their  enemies.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  they  fared  worse.  They  were  the  victims  of 
every  sort  of  insult  and  violence,  the  commission  of  which 
was  regarded  as  proof  of  loyalty  and  ofiBcial  zeal,  and  their 
comjDlaints — if  they  had  dared  to  make  any — would  either 
have  passed  unheeded  or  been  answered  by  an  insulting 
laugh  or  a  cynical  sneer. 

But  there  is  always  a  lowest  depth,  and  in  the  place  of 
torment  which  the  fortress  in  these  later  days  has  become, 
a  dungeon-house — human  slaughter-house,  rather — has  re- 
cently been  contrived,  the  hoiTors  of  which  surpass  anything 
that  Englishmen  can  imagine.  This  is  the  Troubetzkoi 
ravelin.  It  is  not  a  preventative  prison  where  suspected 
people  await  judgment,  but  a  penitential  gaol  where  con- 
victs condemned  for  life  or  very  long  terms  are  confined 
and  punished — a  sort  of  bagnio  to  which  are  consigned  those 
for  whom  the  bagnios  of  Siberia  or  the  cells  of  the  Central 
Prisons  are  not  considered  sufficiently  severe.  Hither, 
too,  are  sent  the  Terrorists,  whom  their  great  numbers 
hindered  from  being  hanged.  Converted  to  its  present 
purpose  towards  the  end  of  1881,  or  about  the  beginning 
of  1882,  this  dungeon  within  a  dungeon  has  from  the 
first  been  placed  under  the  most  rigorous  supervision, 
and  strict  precautions  taken  to  prevent  knowledge  of  what 


THE   TROUBETZKOI   RAVELIN".  147 

goes  on  in  its  dark  interior  from  coining  to  light.  Three 
letters  from  prisoners  have  nevertheless  passed  the  bar- 
riers, and  reached  the  hands  for  which  they  were  destined. 
They  tell  a  tale  which  has  thrilled  educated  Russia  with 
pity  and  indignation,  and  reveal  horrors  to  match  which  in 
Western  Europe  we  must  go  back  centuries.  Two  of  these 
letters  were  written  in  haste  and  very  briefly  ;  they  are  little 
more  than  heartrending  cries  of  suffering  and  despair.  The 
third  and  most  important  is  long  and  full  of  detail.  It  was 
printed  forthwith  in  the  clandestine  press  of  the  Narodnaia 
Volia  under  the  title  of,  "  Torture  at  the  Bagnio  of  St. 
Petersburg  in  1883."  Though  he  had  contrived  to  get  a 
pen  and  some  paper,  the  writer  was  compelled  to  write  with 
his  own  blood,  v/hich  (in  the  absence  of  a  knife)  he  ob- 
tained by  biting  his  flesh.  Tliis  is  a  common  device  in  Eus- 
sian  prisons,  and  we  often  receive  letters  written  not  alone 
metaphorically,  but  literally,  with  their  author's  blood.  It 
was  this  blood-written  letter  that  so  deeply  moved  the  let- 
tered public  of  St.  Petersburg,  and  from  which  some  extracts 
appeared  m  the  columns  of  the  Times  in  June,  1884.  To 
this  very  blood-written  letter  (which  I  have  had  in  my 
hands),  supplemented  by  information  given  by  the  two  other 
letters,  I  am  indebted  for  the  following  particulars. 

Prisoners  are  generally  transferred  to  the  Troubetzkoi 
ravelin  a  few  weeks  after  their  conviction.  You  are  told  one 
fine  morning,  at  a  time  perhaps  when  you  are  in  daily  ex- 
pectation of  being  sent  to  Siberia,  that  you  must  change  your 
cell.  You  are  ordered  to  don  a  regular  convict  suit,  the 
principal  garment  of  which  is  a  gray  coat,  ornamented  with 
a  yellow  ace.  Preceded  by  one  gendarme  and  follov/ed  by 
another,  you  are  then  led  through  a  maze  of  passages,  cor- 
ridors and  vaults,  until  a  door,  which  seems  to  open  into 
the  wall,  is  reached.  Here  your  conductors  stop,  the  door 
is  opened,  and  you  are  told  to  enter.  For  a  minute  or  two 
you  can  see  nothing,  so  deep  is  the  gloom.     The  coldness 


148  RUSSIA  UNDEE  THE  TZARS. 

of  the  place  chills  you  to  the  bone  ;  and  there  is  a  damp 
mouldy  smell  like  that  of  a  charnel  house  or  an  ill-Axnti- 
lated  cellar.  The  only  light  comes  from  a  little  dormer  v.in- 
dow,  looking  toward  the  counterscarp  of  the  bastion.  The 
panes  are  dark  gray,  being  overlaid  with  a  thick  covering  of 
dust,  which  seems  to  have  lain  there  for  ages.  When  your 
eyes  have  become  accustomed  to  the  obscurity,  you  perceive 
that  you  are  the  tenant  of  a  cell  a  few  paces  wide  and  long. 
In  one  corner  is  a  bed  of  straw,  with  a  woollen  counterpane 
— as  thin  as  paper — nothing  else.  At  the  foot  of  the  bed 
stands  a  high  wooden  pail  with  a  cover.  This  is  the  par- 
ashha,  which  later  on  will  poison  you  with  foul  stenches. 
For  the  prisoners  of  the  Troubetzkoi  bastion  are  not  allowed 
to  leave  their  cells  for  any  purpose  whatever,  either  night  or 
day  (except  for  the  regulation  exercise),  and  the  parashha 
is  often  left  unemptied  for  days  together.  You  are  thus 
obliged  to  live,  sleep,  eat  and  drink  in  an  atmosphere  reek- 
ing with  corruption  and  fatal  to  health.  In  your  other  cell 
you  had  a  few  requisites,  generally  considered  indispensable 
for  all  men  above  the  level  of  savages,  such  as  a  comb,  a 
hair-brush,  and  a  piece  of  soap.  You  were  also  allowed  to  have 
a  few  books,  and  a  little  tea  and  sugar,  obtained,  of  course, 
at  your  own  expense.  Here  you  are  denied  even  these  poor 
luxuries,  for  by  the  rules  of  the  Troubetzkoi  ravelin  pris- 
oners are  forbidden  the  possession  of  any  object  whatever 
not  given  to  them  by  the  administration,  and  as  the  admin- 
istration gives  neither  tea  nor  sugar,  neither  bmsh  nor 
comb  nor  soap,  you  cannot  have  them.  Worse  still  is  the 
deprivation  of  books.  In  no  part  of  the  fortress  may  books 
be  brought  from  without.  Ordinary  prisoners  must  content 
themselves  during  all  the  years  of  their  solitary  confinement 
with  such  as  are  contained  in  the  prison  library,  a  few  hun- 
dred volumes,  consisting,  for  the  most  part,  of  magazines 
dating  from  the  first  quarter  of  the  century.  But  to  the 
doomed  captive  of  the  Troubetzkoi — doomed  to  a  fate  worse 


THE   TKOUBETZKOI   KAYELIN".  149 

than  death — are  interdicted  books  of  every  sort.  "  They 
may  not  read  even  the  Bible,"  says  the  letter.  Xo  occupa- 
tion, either  mental  or  manual,  beguiles  the  wretched  monot- 
ony of  their  lives.  The  least  distraction,  the  most  trifling 
amusement,  is  as  strictly  forbidden  to  them  as  if  it  were  an 
attempt  to  rob  their  gaolers,  who  exact  from  their  victims 
all  the  suffering  which  it  is  in  the  power  of  the  latter  to 
give.  A  prisoner,  named  Zoubkovski,  having  made  some 
cubes  of  bread  crumbs  wherewith  to  construct  geometric 
figures,  they  were  taken  from  him  by  the  gendarmes, 
on  the  ground  that  a  prison  was  not  a  place  of  amusement. 
According  to  the  regulations,  the  prisoners  of  the  Trou- 
betzkoi  should  have  precisely  the  same  amount  of  walking 
exercise  as  any  other  prisoners  of  the  fortress.  In  point  of 
fact,  however,  they  are  taken  out  only  every  forty-eight  hours, 
to  breathe  the  fresh  air  for  ten  minutes — never  longer — and 
it  sometimes  happens  to  them  to  be  left  three  and  four  con- 
secutive days  in  the  fetid  atmosphere  without  break,  as  would 
appear  for  no  other  cause  but  the  neglect  of  the  warders. 

The  rations  allowed  by  the  Government  are  quite  insuf- 
ficient, and  of  poor  quality  ;  but,  bad  as  they  are,  the  pris- 
oners do  not  get  them,  for  the  purveyors  (who  are  also  man- 
agers of  the  prison),  in  order  to  economize  on  the  official 
allowance,  buy  the  worst  and  cheapest  food  they  can  lay 
their  hands  on — of  course  stealing  the  difference.*  The 
flour  is  always  bad,  the  meat  seldom  fresh.  In  order  to 
make  the  bread  weigh  heavier,  it  is  so  insufficiently  baked, 
that  even  the  crust  is  hardly  eatable,  and  when  the  inside 
of  a  loaf  is  thrown  against  the  wall,  it  sticks  there  like 

*  In  past  times  things  were  managed  differently.  The  fortress,  being 
then  an  aristocratic  prison,  the  prisoners  had  dinners  of  three  courses, 
with  white  bread  and  even  wine,  and  the  linen  was  clean  and  fine. 
This  went  on,  by  routine,  after  the  aristocratic  prisoners  were  suc- 
ceeded by  the  first  Xihilists.  But  towards  the  latter  end  of  the  last 
Tzar's  reign  the  fortress  was  democratized,  and  placsd  on  the  sanio 
footing  as  all  the  other  prisons. 


150  EUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

mortar.  Here  is  the  daily  menu  of  a  Troubetzkoi  prisoner  : 
Three  iDounds  of  black  bread,  quality  as  described  ;  in  the 
morning,  a  jug  of  yellowish  water,  supposed  to  be  tea  ;  at 
11  o'clock,  half  a  jug  of  kvas  ;*  at  noon,  a  plate  of  soup 
made  of  bread  crusts  and  sour  cabbages,  porridge  of  dam- 
aged Indian  meal,  and — except  a  few  bits  of  meat,  never  ex- 
ceeding three-quarters  of  an  ounce,  mixed  with  the  soup — 
nothing  more  ;  in  the  evening,  another  plate  of  sour  soup, 
much  diluted  with  water  and  without  the  least  trace  of 
meat. 

The  prison  is  no  better  warmed  than  the  prisoners  are  fed, 
a  terrible  hardship  at  sixty  degrees  of  north  latitude  in  the 
winter  time.  The  cells  are  always  cold,  the  walls  always 
damp.  AVhen  the  inspector  makes  his  round  he  never  takes 
off  his  fur  pelisse.  The  prisoners,  who  have  no  furs,  shiver 
even  in  their  beds,  and  all  through  the  long  winter  their 
hands  and  feet  feel  like  lumps  of  ice.  Even  in  summer  the 
jorisoners  are  not  in  much  better  plight,  for  during  the 
warmer  months  St.  Petersburg,  built  on  a  marsh,  is  more 
unhealthy  than  at  any  other  time.  The  unfavorable  hygi- 
enic conditions  of  the  fortress,  the  dampness  of  the  cells, 
the  lack  of  sunlight,  the  continual  presence  of  the  malodor- 
ous parasitica,  the  bad  and  scanty  food  (worse  in  summer 
than  in  winter),  aggravate  the  misery  of  the  prisoners  and 
fatally  injure  their  health.  The  mortality  among  them  is 
frightful.  The  most  robust  are  unable  to  resist  the  un- 
wholesome influence  to  which  they  are  exposed  ;  they  wither 
like  flowers  deprived  of  water  and  air.  While  their  bodies 
lose  flesh,  their  faces  become  swollen  and  blotched,  and  the 
extremities,  especially  the  hands,  are  in  a  continual  nervous 
tremble.  It  might  be  supposed  that  the  deprivation  of 
books  and  the  gloom  of  their  cells  would  tend  to  preserve 
their  eyesight.     But  it  is  the  very  reverse.     Their  eyes  bc- 

*  The  national  drink  ;   a  sort  of  soxu:  cider,  or  rather,  acidiilated 


THE  TKOUBETZKOI   RAVELIN.  151 

come  inflamed,  the  lids  swell  and  are  opened  only  with  great 
diHiciilty.  But  the  maladies  most  fatal  and  frequent — 
which  cause  the  greatest  mortality  and  entail  the  most  cruel 
suffering— are  dysentery  and  scurvy,  both  caused  solely  by 
the  insufficient  and  unsuitable  dietary  of  the  prison.  Yet 
the  sick  are  treated  in  exactly  the  same  way  as  the  whole  ; 
get  the  same  food — same  sodden  black  bread,  same  sham 
tea,  even  the  same  sour  soup,  which  in  their  condition  is 
nothing  less  than  poison.  No  wonder  that  under  such  a 
regimen  and  without  proper  care — without  any  care  at  all 
— patients  suffering  from  these  disorders  die  quickly.  They 
lose  the  use  of  their  legs,  they  cannot  reach  the  parashka, 
the  warders  refuse  to  change  the  straw  of  their  wretched 
beds,  and  they  are  left  to  perish  and  rot  in  their  own  cor- 
ruption. But  these  are  horrors  that  defy  description — that 
only  the  pen  of  a  Dante  could  adequately  portray. 

*'  Oh,  if  you  could  see  our  sick  !  "  exclaims  the  writer  of 
the  blood- written  letter.  "A  year  ago  they  were  young, 
healthy,  and  robust.  Now  they  are  bowed  and  decrepit  old 
men,  hardly  able  to  walk.  Several  of  them  cannot  rise 
from  their  beds.  Covered  with  vermin,  and  eaten  up  with 
scurvy,  they  emit  an  odor  like  that  of  a  corpse." 

"  But  is  there  no  doctor  ?"  it  may  be  asked  ;  and  ''"What 
is  he  doing  all  this  time  ?"  Yes,  there  is  a  doctor  ;  there 
are  even  two  doctors.  One,  however,  is  past  fourscore  and 
past  work.  He  comes  to  the  fortress  only  occasionally. 
The  other  is  young,  and  probably  kind  enough  in  intention, 
but  not  very  resolute  in  character,  and  standing  in  great 
awe  of  the  officers  of  the  gaol.  When  he  visits  his  patients 
he  is  invariably  accompanied  by  a  brace  of  gendarmes,  lest 
he  should  surreptitiously  convey  letters  to  prisoners.  He 
enters  a  cell  with  a  troubled  countenance,  as  if  he  were 
afraid  of  something;  never  goes  further  than  the  threshold, 
much  less  approaches  the  sick  man's  bed  or  makes  any  ex- 
amination of  him,  feels  bis  puis?  or  looks  at  his  tongiie. 


152  RUSSIA   UKDER  THE  TZARS. 

After  asking  a  few  questions  he  delivers  his  verdict,  which 
is  almost  always  couched  in  the  same  words:  'Tor  your  ill- 
ness there  is  no  cure." 

And  what  better  can  the  poor  man  do — what  else  say  ? 
According  to  the  regulations  enforced  in  the  Troubetzkoi 
no  indulgence  can  be  shown  to  the  sick ;  they  must  have 
the  same  food  as  the  others — or  none  ;  no  extra  service  is 
offered,  no  nurses  are  allowed  them.  The  water  is,  more- 
over, so  bad  that,  if  other  conditions  were  favorable,  this 
cause  alone  would  almost  render  recovery  hopeless. 

*'  No  mercy  is  shown  even  to  the  mad,"  says  another  of 
the  letters,  "  and  you  may  imagine  how  many  such  there 
are  in  our  Grolgotha.  They  are  not  sent  to  any  asylum,  but 
shut  up  in  their  cells  and  kept  in  order  with  whip  and 
scourge.  Often  you  hear  down  below  you,  or  at  some  little 
distance,  the  sound  of  heart-rending  shrieks,  cries,  and 
groans.  It  is  some  wretched  lunatic,  who  is  being  flogged 
into  obedience." 

The  following  extracts  from  the  Troubetzkoi  regulations 
fully  confirm  the  prisoners'  statements  concerning  the  strin- 
gency of  the  discipline  imposed  upon  them,  and  the  barba- 
rous treatment  to  which  they  are  exposed  : 

"  Prisoners  of  the  Troubetzkoi,  as  bagnio  slaves,  are  placed  under  the 
administration  of  the  fortress.  For  slight  offences  the  administration 
may  order  a  prisoner  to  be  put  from  one  to  six  days  in  a  penal  cell,  on 
a  diet  of  bread  and  water,  or  sentence  him  to  corporal  punishment,  the 
said  corporal  punishment  to  consist  of  not  more  than  20  stripes  of  the 
knout,  or  100  strokes  with  a  whip.  In  cases  of  serious  offences 
(attempted  escape,  or  resistance  to  authority)  the  culprit  is  relegated  to 
the  military  tribunal,  which  may  order  the  infliction  of  100  stripes  of  the 
knout,  100  strokes  with  a  whip,  and  as  many  as  8,000  blows  with  a  stick." 

Thus  the  political  prisoners  of  the  Troubetzkoi  ravelin,     | 
mostly  men  of  culture  and  refinement,  and  belonging  to  the 
higher  grades  of  society,  have  ever  before  them  the  possi- 
bility of  being  compelled  to  undergo  coi-poral  punishment  in 


THE   TROUBETZKOI    RAVELIN.  153 

its  cruellest  and  most  degrading  form.  "  "We  have  every 
reason  to  believe,"  says  one  of  the  letters  in  question,  "that 
the  threat  (of  a  flogging)  is  no  empty  one.  Zlatopolsky  was 
flogged  for  carrying  on  a  secret  correspondence  with  the  help 
of  a  gendarme." 

"Is  it  possible  to  remain  quiet,"  exclaims  the  writer  of 
another  letter,  "while  the  menace  of  such  an  outrage  hangs 
continually  over  your  head ;  while  every  cry  you  hear 
makes  you  feel  as  if  one  of  your  friends  was  being  knouted 
before  your  eyes  ! " 

Nor  is  this  the  worst.  There  are  women  in  the  Trou- 
betzkoi. 

"  What  is  most  frightful,"  continues  the  writer,  "  is  the  position  of 
the  women,  condemned  like  ourselves.  Like  us,  they  are  at  the  mercy 
of  their  gaoler's  caprices.  No  consideration  is  shown  their  sex.  Their 
beds,  like  ours,  are  searched  every  day  by  men.  The  linen  which  they 
have  just  taken  off  is  examined,  at  all  times,  by  gendarmes.  Nor  is 
this  alL  Gendarmes  may  enter  their  cells  day  or  night,  just  as  they 
please.  It  is  true  that  a  rule  forbids  one  gendarme  to  enter  the  prison- 
ers' cells  save  in  the  company  of  another  gendarme.  But  who  cares  for 
the  infraction  of  such  a  rule  ?  The  relations  between  the  various 
gaolers  being  of  the  most  cordial  nature,  nothing  is  easier  for  them  than 
to  come  to  an  understanding  among  themselves.  Cases  of  rape  are  there- 
fore very  possible.  At  any  rate  attempts  of  this  sort  are  common  enough. 
Quite  recently  a  young  girl  (one  of  the  accused  in  the  Odessa  trial, 
L.  Terentieva),  has  died  most  mysteriously.  It  is  reported  that  she 
was  poisoned  by  some  venomous  substance,  administered  by  mistake  in 
her  medicine.  There  was,  however,  a  rumor  that  this  unhappy  young 
girl,  after  being  violated,  was  poisoned  to  prevent  her  from  exposing 
the  crime.  It  is,  at  any  rate,  certain  that  her  death  was  for  a  long  time 
kept  secret  from  the  superior  police  and  gendarmeiy,  that  no  inquiry 
has  been  instituted,  and  that  the  doctors  have  retained  their  posts." 

Such  are  the  horrors  of  prison  life  in  the  Troubetzkoi 
ravelin  ! 

Shut  out  from  all,  surrounded  by  cruel  and  insolent 
gaolers,  who  never  speak  except,  perchance,  to  answer-  a 
harmless  question  with  a  gross  insult,  the  captives  become 
7* 


154  RUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

at  last  utterly  cowed  and  moodily  silent,  living  in  their  lone- 
some dens  without  a  thought,  without  a  future,  and  without 
a  hope.  If  a  prisoner  can  hold  no  secret  communication 
with  his  friends,  he  loses  count  of  the  days,  then  of  the 
■weeks,  then  of  the  months.  If  he  be  sick  and  unable  to 
leave  his  cell  for  exercise,  he  even  ceases  to  observe  the 
seasons  ;  for  whatever  may  be  the  weather  outside,  his 
dreary  abode  is  always  cold,  gloomy,  and  damp,  and  his  ex- 
istence becomes  a  chaos  which  can  end  only  in  madness  or 
death. 

And  even  yet  all  the  terrors  of  the  Troubetzkoi  are  not 
told.       . 

Under  the  first  floor,  and  below  the  level  of  the  Neva, 
are  other  cells  far  worse  than  those  I  have  described — real 
underground  vaults,  dark  at  noonday  and  infested  with 
loathsome  vermin.  They  are  the  condemned  cells,  provided 
by  the  Government  for  those  it  most  hates,  and  whom  it 
has  doomed  to  die  either  in  lonesome  darkness,  or  on  the 
scaffold  and  in  the  light  of  day.  Let  us  see  what  the  letter 
has  to  say  about  this  pandemonium  : 

"The  small  windows  are  on  a  level  with  the  river,  which  overflows 
them  when  the  Neva  rises.  The  thick  iron  bars  of  the  grating,  covered 
with  dirt,  shut  out  most  of  the  little  light  that  else  might  filter  through 
these  holes.  If  the  rays  of  the  sun  never  enter  the  cells  of  the  upper 
floor,  it  may  easily  be  imagined  what  darkness  reigns  below.  The 
walls  are  mouldering,  and  dirty  water  continually  drops  from  them. 
But  most  terrible  ai"e  the  rats.  In  the  brick  floors  large  liolcs  have 
been  left  open  for  the  rats  to  pass  through.  I  express  myself  thus  in 
tentionally.  Nothing  would  be  easier  than  to  block  up  these  holes,  and 
yet  the  reiterated  demands  of  the  prisoners  have  always  been  passed  by 
unnoticed,  so  that  the  rats  enter  by  scores,  try  to  climb  upon  the  beds 
and  to  bite  the  prisoners.  It  is  in  these  hideous  dungeons  that  the  con- 
demned to  death  spend  their  last  hours.  Kviatkovsky,  Presniakoff, 
Scukanoff,  passed  their  last  nights  here.  At  the  present  moment, 
among  others,  there  is  a  woman,  with  a  little  child  at  her  breast.  Thi'^ 
is  Jakimova.  Night  and  day  she  watches  over  her  babe  lest  ho  should 
be  devoured  by  the  rats," 


THE   TKOUBETZKOI    RAVELIN.  155 

''But,"  I  hear  my  readers  exclaim,  "  can  these  things  be  ? 
Is  it  possible  that  at  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century,  in  a 
great  capital  v,'hich  wears  at  least  the  outward  semblance 
of  civilization,  deeds  so  monstrous  and  cruel  can  be  per- 
petrated ?  These  letters,  written  by  men  languishing  in  a 
wearisome  captivity,  and  dwelling  continually  on  their  suf- 
ferings, are  they  not  unconscious  exaggerations  ?  " 

I  should  be  glad  to  think  so.  I  have  no  desire  to  paint 
with  too  dark  a  brush.  But,  as  there  is  abundance  of  direct 
and  indirect  evidence  to  show,  the  statements  set  down  by 
these  necessarily  nameless  prisoners  with  their  own  blood 
are  unfortunately  only  too  true.* 

From  October  25  to  30,  1880,  there  were  tried  at  St. 
Petersburg  sixteen  Terrorists,  six  of  whom  were  condemned 
to  death  and  eight  to  hard  labor  for  different  terms.  Two 
of  the  fonner  were  executed  and  four  reprieved.  "When  the 
procurator,  Aksharamoff,  informed  the  four  that  the  Em- 
peror had  been  j^leased  to  commute  their  sentences  to  penal 
servitude  for  life,  his  news  was  received  with  such  unmis- 
takable manifestations  of  disappointment  and  displeasure, 
that  he  retired  in  confusion,  observing  that  he  could  not, 
unfortunately,  change  the  decrees  of  the  sovereign.  And 
the  prophetic  souls  of  the  prisoners  did  not  deceive  them. 
The  greater  part  of  these  young  and  vigorous  men  (includ- 
ing those  who  were  sentenced  to  hard  labor)  either  died  or 
went  mad  before  they  had  been  in  the  fortress  two  years. 
Isaieff,  Okladsky,  Zuekerman,  and  Martynovsky  arc  mad, 
Schiraeff  is  dead,  Tichenoff  is  dying. 

From  facts  like  these  only  one  inference  is  possible. 

"What  must  be  the  system  that  produces  so  dire  results  ! 

*  It  is  well  to  remember  that  the  extracts  from  the  letter  in  question, 
published  in  the  Times,  went  the  round  of  the  European  Press,  and 
that  the  Russian  Government  has  never  ventured  either  to  dispute  their 
genuineness  or  disprove  their  statements. 


156  RUSSIA    UNDER   THE   TZARS. 

Even  if  the  blood-written  letters  were  not  there  to  tell  us, 
Ave  could  have  no  doubt. 

Another  fact.  On  July  26,  1883,  there  amved  at  Moscow 
a  number  of  political  convicts  of  both  sexes  deported  to 
Siberia,  who  had  been  imprisoned  in  the  Fortress  of  St. 
Peter  and  St.  Paul;  and  the  following  is  the  description 
given  by  an  eye-witness— eminently  trustworthy — of  the 
condition  to  which  these  prisoners,,  whose  crimes,  it  should 
be  borne  in  mind,  despite  their  severe  sentences,  were  not 
deemed  serious,  had  been  brought  by  one  year's  detention 
in  the  cells  of  the  Troubetzkoi  ravelin: 

"The  arrival  of  the  St.  Petersburg  train  caused  great 
commotion  amongst  the  officials  and  others  who  were  in  the 
station.  Most  of  the  prisoners  could  not  alight  without 
help,  some  even  were  unable  to  move.  The  guard  wanted 
to  transfer  them  straightway  to  our  train,  so  as  to  conceal 
their  condition  from  the  public.  But  this  was  quite  im- 
possible. Six  of  the  prisoners  fainted  outright.  The  others 
could  hardly  stand.  On  this  the  chief  of  the  escort  ordered 
litters  to  be  brought.  But  as  the  litters  could  not  be  got 
into  the  carriages,  the  unconscious  prisoners  had  to  be  lifted 
out,  like  corpses,  and  carried  on  men's  shoulders. 

"The  first  man  brought  out  was  Ignat  Voloshenko  (sen- 
tenced first  to  ten  years'  hard  labor  in  the  Osinski  trial, 
secondly,  to  fifteen  years'  hard  labor  for  attempting  to 
escape  from  Irkoutsk,  then  transferred  to  Kara,  and  after- 
wards to  the  fortress,  where  he  had  been  kej^t  one  year).  It 
is  difficult  to  describe  the  horrible  appearance  and  condition 
of  this  man.  Eaten  up  with  scurvy,  he  was  more  like  a 
putrefying  corpse  than  a  living  being.  Torn  every  moment 
by  convulsion — dying.  .  .  .  But  it  is  useless.  I  am  utterly 
unable  to  speak  of  him  more. 

"After  Voloshenko  was  lifted  out  Alexander  Pribylev 
(condemned  in  the  trial  of  June  17,  1882,  to  fifteen  years' 
penal  servitude).     He  had  no  scurvy,  but  long  abstention 


THE  TKOUBETZKOI   RAVELIIS".  157 

from  food  and  complete  derangement  of  the  nervous  system 
had  so  reduced  his  strength  that  he  could  not  stand  and  fre- 
quently fainted. 

"Next  came  Fomin  (a  former  military  officer  sentenced 
for  life).*  He  looked  like  a  corpse,  and  for  nearly  two 
hours  several  doctors  tried  in  vain  to  bring  him  round.  It 
was  not  until  evening  that  he  was  sufficiently  restored  to 
resume  his  journey. 

''Fomin's  successor  was  Paul  Orlov  (first  sentenced  to  ten 
years  at  the  hulks,  subsequently  to  twenty-one  years  for  try- 
ing to  escape,  and  put  with  Voloshenko  in  the  fortress, 
where  he  had  been  kept  a  year).  Only  twenty-seven  years 
of  age  and  once  remarkable  for  his  stature  and  strength,  he 
was  now  hardly  recognizable.  He  was  bent  like  an  old 
man,  and  one  of  his  feet  was  so  crippled  that  he  could 
scarcely  walk.  He  had  scurvy  in  its  most  terrible  shape, 
blood  was  continually  oozing  from  his  gums  and  flowing 
from  his  mouth. 

''The  fifth  was  a  woman,  Tatiana  Lebedeva,f  whose  sen- 
tence of  death  (February  15,  1882)  had  been  commuted  to 
penal  servitude  for  life.  But  imprisonment  for  Tatiana, 
whether  long  or  short,  had  lost  its  terrors.  Her  days  were 
numbered,  and  the  greatest  boon  her  enemies  could  bestow 
on  her  would  be  speedy  death.  Besides  being  in  the  last 
stage  of  consumption  and  torn  with  a  terrible  cough,  she 
was  so  eaten  up  with  scurvy  that  her  teeth  were  nearly  all 
gone,  and  the  flesh  had  fallen  away,  leaving  her  jawbones 
quite  bare.  Her  aspect  was  that  of  a  skeleton,  partly  cov- 
ered with  parchment-like  skin,  the  only  sign  of  life  being 
her  still  bright  black  eyes. 

"After  Lebedeva  came  Yakimova,  holding  in  her  arms 

*  In  1883  he  was  at  Geneva,  a  strong  man,  the  very  picture  of  health. 
— S.  S. 

f  Some  twenty-eight  years  of  age.  She  was  of  delicate  constitution, 
but  before  being  arrested,  in  1881,  in  excellent  health. 


158  RUSSIA   UNDER  THE   TZARS. 

an  eighteen  months'  old  babe  born  in  the  Troubetzkoi  rave- 
lin. The  most  hard-hearted  could  not  look  at  that  poor 
child  unmoved.  It  seemed  as  if  every  moment  would  be  its 
last.  As  for  Yakimova,  she  did  not  appear  to  have  suffered 
very  much,  either  morally  or  physically,  and,  notwithstand- 
ing the  penal  servitude  for  life  which  was  before  her,  bore 
herself  with  composure  and  firmness." 

In  view  of  facts  like  these  it  is  impossible  to  delude  our- 
selves with  the  hope  that  the  pictures  of  their  lives,  drawn 
by  the  prisoners  of  the  fortress  in  the  letters  I  have  cited, 
are  in  the  least  overdrawn,  even  unconsciously. 

******* 

If  the  regime  of  preventative  detention  and  interrogation 
is  virtually  a  reproduction  of  the  judicial  tortures  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  that  of  penitential  imprisonment  is  an  alto- 
gether new  and  original  system,  begotten  of  the  baseness 
and  cruelty  of  the  Russian  Government.  Too  craven  to  ex- 
ecute men  and  women  publicly  and  by  the  dozen,  it  kills  by 
inches— yet  none  the  less  surely — those  of  whom,  either  out 
of  policy  or  revenge,  it  desires  to  rid  itself.  Torture  daily 
repeated  is  the  means,  death  not  too  long  delayed  the  end. 
Because,  if  solitary  confinement  at  ISTovo-Belgorod  be,  as 
the  prisoner  Zizianoff  avers,  and  there  is  abundant  evidence 
to  prove,  sloio  death,  the  same  cannot  certainly  be  said  of 
incarceration  in  the  black  holes  of  the  Troubetzkoi. 

It  is  a  portentous  fact  that  the  system  of  punitive  or  peni- 
tential imprisonment  we  have  described  has  ceased  to  be  an 
exception.  It  is  becoming  generalized  throughout  the  em- 
pire, and  the  Russian  Government  are  adopting  it  as  part  of 
a  settled  policy  in  their  dealings  with  political  offenders. 
Since  1878  no  political  convicts  have  been  consigned  to  the 
Central  Prison,  and  the  less  seriously  compromised  alone  are 
now  transported  to  Siberia.  Among  the  Terrorists  none 
but  those  guilty  of  offences  against  State  functionaries — 


THE  TROUBETZKOI   KAVELI]S".  159 

and  chiefly  those  of  them  who  are  women — arc  sent  to  the 
northern  hulks  ;  yet  not  until,  like  Tatiana  Lebedeva  and 
others,  they  have  been  brought  to  death's  door  by  a  term  of 
penitential  imprisonment.  And  still  there  are  exceptions, 
for  some,  like  Hesse  Helfmann,  Vera  Figner,  and  Ludmila 
Volkenstein,  were  kept  in  the  fortress.     Hesse  died  there. 

As  for  the  Terrorists  implicated  in  plots  against  the  Em- 
peror (of  whom  the  majority  naturally  consists),  they  were 
consigned  to  the  fortress  one  and  all ;  yet  bow  many  of 
them  are  ''finished,"  to  use  a  Russian  expression,  or  are  in 
the  course  of  being  finished,  we  have  no  means  of  knowing, 
that  being  one  of  the  secrets  of  the  prison-house. 

The  Fortress  of  Peter  and  Paul  is  great.  But  there  is  a 
limit  to  everything — even  to  the  capacity  of  a  Russian  Bas- 
tile — and  to  meet  the  ever-increasing  demand  for  more  ac- 
commodation, the  Government  of  Alexander  III.  has  deemed 
it  desirable  to  provide  another  purgatory  for  its  political 
prisoners — the  fortress  of  Schliisselburg.  It  is  a  second 
Troubetzkoi — no  worse — and  surely  nothing  can  be  worse  ! 
W'liat  still  could  the  Government  do  more  ? — roast  its  pris- 
oners alive,  or  do  with  them  as  the  Roman  emperors  were 
sometimes  wont  to  do  with  their  enemies — throw  them  into 
holes  swarming  with  vipers  ? 

But  Schliisselburg  possesses  in  official  eyes  this  priceless 
advantage — there  is  no  chance  of  its  horrors  being  exposed 
like  those  of  the  Troubetzkoi.  Because  Schliisselburg  is 
not  in  the  middle  of  a  great  city,  where  there  are  thousands 
of  sympathizers  eager  to  communicate  with  the  prisoners, 
and  who,  despite  all  the  vigilance  of  the  authorities,  some- 
times succeed  in  doing  so.  At  Schliisselburg  nature  herself 
acts  as  sentinel,  for  the  new  Castle  of  Despair  is  simply  a 
huge  block  of  granite  covered  with  fortifications  and  sur- 
rounded by  water.  No  news  can  be  received,  no  secrets  torn 
from  that  accursed  prison.  All  who  enter  therein  must 
abandon  hope.     From  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul  volumes  of 


160  RUSSIA   UNDER  THE   TZAKS. 

clandestine  letters  have  been  received.  The  ravelins  most 
jealously  guarded — even  the  Alexis  and  the  Troubetzkoi — 
have  yielded  their  secrets  to  energy  and  perseverance.  But 
from  the  prisoners  in  the  Schliisselburg — though  they  have 
been  there  for  years — not  a  word,  not  a  line ;  only  vague 
rumors.  Yet  it  is  thither  that  were  sent  the  noble  heroes  of 
the  latest  trials — Lieutenant-Colonel  Ashcnbrenner,  Captain 
Pokitonoff,  and  Lieutenant  Tichonovitch.  In  Schliissel- 
burg, too,  they  have  shut  up  fourteen  propagandists,  lately 
returned  from  Siberian  hulks. 

Here,  also,  let  me  add,  there  has  been  immured  for  two 
years  a  man  whose  name  I  will  not  mention — the  friend  of 
my  boyhood,  my  fellow- worker  in  the  struggle.  On  the  eve 
of  his  removal  to  the  Schliisselburg  he  sent  to  us  from  the 
depths  of  the  Troubetzkoi  ravelin  this  sublime  farewell : 
"Fight  on  until  the  victory  is  won.  For  me  henceforth 
there  is  but  one  measure  ;  the  more  they  torment  me  in  my 
prison  the  better  is  it  with  the  struggle." 

By  what  ferocious  language,  by  what  fresh  tortures  has 
he  learnt  the  subsequent  successes  of  his  friends  ?  Does  he 
still  continue  to  hear  of  them  ?  Or  is  he,  perhaps,  with  so 
many  others,  where  there  is  no  more  to  be  suffered,  no  more 
to  be  learnt  ? 


I 


CHAPTER  XX. 

SIBERIA. 

Siberia  !  The  word  sends  a  thrill  of  cold  through  our 
very  bones,  and  when  we  think  of  the  unfortunate  exiles  lost 
in  icy  wastes  and  condemned  to  life-long  servitude  in  chains, 
our  hearts  are  moved  to  pity  and  compassion.  Yet,  as  we 
have  seen,  this  word  of  horror  is  to  some  people  suggestive 
of  consolation  and  hope.  To  them  it  is  a  promised  land,  a 
place  of  security  and  rest.  We  know,  too,  that  thither  are 
sent  men  and  women  who,  though  reduced  to  the  last  ex- 
tremity, their  gaolers  do  not  as  yet  want  quite  ''to  fiuish." 

"What,  then,  is  this  paradise  of  the  lost,  this  enigmatical 
Siberian  place  of  punishment,  converted  by  a  strange  evolu- 
tion into  a  Nihilist  Kurort — a  revolutionary  sanatorium — 
as  in  a  legend  of  the  Plutonic  realm  its  liquid  fire  is  said  to 
be  turned  into  a  cool  and  refreshing  drink  ? 

Let  us,  taking  the  wings  of  imagination,  cross  the  Uralian 
mountains,  and  flying  far,  far  from  the  confines  of  Europe, 
descend  in  the  region  of  Zabaikalia,  beyond  Lake  Baikal,  on 
the  banks  of  the  river  Kara,  see  for  ourselves  what  manner 
of  life  these  Siberian  transports  lead. 

But  if  we  travel  like  ordinary  mortals — and  political  con- 
victs— we  must,  after  leaving  Irkoutsk  by  the  Zabaikalia 
road,  pass  through  Chita  and  Xertchinsk,  celebrated  for 
their  "  penitential  mines,"  to  Detensk.  Here  you  take  one 
of  the  Amour  Navigation  Company's  steamers  and  journey 
by  one  of  that  river's  aifiuents  (the  Shilke)  to  the  little 
village  of  Oust-Kara,  at  the  mouth  of  the  river  Kara,  where 


162  RUSSIA    UNDEE   THE   TZAES. 

there  are  several  bouses  of  detention  for  ordinary  criminals 
and  one  for  i)olitical  convicts  of  the  weaker  sex.  These 
prisons  are  detached  buildings,  standing  on  the  river's  bank, 
at  intervals  of  from  five  to  eight  miles.  All  these  prisons 
are  under  the  general  direction  of  a  single  chief ;  but  the 
political  prison,  which  consists  of  four  buildings,  bas  its  own 
special  organization  and  management.  Twelve  miles  from 
Oust-Kara,  and  up  stream,  is  the  Lower  Kara  prison. 
Next  comes  that  of  Higher  Kara  ;  and,  about  the  same  dis- 
tance further  on,  the  Amour — that  is  to  say,  the  prison  on 
the  river  Amour. 

A  political  prison  is  recognized  by  a  characteristic  pecul- 
iarity. Other  places  of  the  sort — those  destined  for  ordinary 
convicts — have  outer  walls  or  palisades  on  three  sides  only, 
the  fourth  being  unenclosed,  with  the  front  windows  facing 
the  road.  Political  j^risous  are  arranged  diHercntly.  Built 
in  the  middle  of  a  court,  they  are  surrounded  on  every  side 
by  walls  so  high  that  you  can  see  only  the  roof.  When  the 
erection  of  thase  prisons  was  first  proposed  the  architect 
designed  them  on  the  ordinary  plan  of  similar  structures  in 
Siberia.  But  General  Anutchin,  at  that  time  governor  of 
Eastern  Siberia,  issued  a  special  order  that  all  gaols  for  political 
offenders  were  to  be  enclosed  within  lofty  palisades  in  such  a 
manner  that  the  horizon  of  the  inmates  should  be  bounded 
by  the  wooden  walls  of  their  dreary  abode.  He  thought 
this  quite  good  enough  for  political  prisoners. 

The  political  prisons  of  Kara  were  organized  at  the  same 
time  as  the  Central  Prison  of  Kharkoff.  Their  first  tenants 
wore  Biberhn,!,  Scmenovsky,  and  others,  of  the  first  prop- 
agandists of  1872  and  1873.  iN'ext  were  sent  thither  the 
least  compromised  convicts  of  the  trial  of  the  193 — Sinegoub, 
Tcharushin,  and  others. 

From  1879  onwards  prisoners  arrived  in  crowds.  In  1882 
came  the  twenty-eight  "centralists"  (Kharkoff  prisoners) 
liberated  by  Loris  Melikoff  from  their  worse  than  Babylo- 


SIBERIA.  163 

nian  servitude.  In  May  of  that  year  there  were  at  Kara 
more  than  a  hundred  political  prisoners,  not  counting 
women. 

At  the  beginning  of  their  confinement  the  Kara  prisoners 
were  treated  precisely  in  the  same  way  as  other  convicts  are 
treated  in  Siberian  lock-ups.  The  only  exception  was  that, 
whereas  ordinary  criminals  were  allowed  to  walk  freely  in 
the  yard  during  the  day,  the  others  were  locked  up  in  their 
rooms  day  as  well  as  night — save,  of  course,  when  they  were 
at  work  in  the  mines.  These  mines  are  the  Emperor's  per- 
sonal property,  and  the  prisoners  are  employed  in  removing 
the  earth  which  overlays  the  auriferous  sand.  At  Kara,  as  in 
Siberia  generally,  there  exists  a  regulation  very  favorable 
to  convicts  under  sentence  of  penal  servitude.  After  having 
passed  a  third  of  their  time  in  prison  "  under  probation,'* 
they  are  allowed  to  join  a  "free  gang,"  which  gives  them 
the  privilege  of  living  outside  the  prison  walls,  in  towns  and 
villages — always  on  condition  that  they  remain  there.  At 
first,  political  prisoners  enjoyed  this  privilege  equally  with 
other  prisoners.  Sinegoub,  Tcharushin,  Semenovsky,  and 
others  were  provisionally  set  free  in  this  way.  It  is  a 
matter  of  everyday  occurrence  for  ordinary  convicts  to  profit 
by  their  comparative  freedom  to  try  to  escape  and  join  the 
great  horde  of  vagabonds  who  throng  Siberian  roads.  But 
it  never  occurred  to  the  administration  to  curtail,  on  this 
account,  the  privileges  of  those  who  remained,  or  make 
them  jointly  and  severally  responsible  for  the  conduct  of 
their  comrades.  As  touching  the  politicals,  however, 
extreme  precautions  were  adopted.  The  ''free  gangs"  of 
"politicals"  were  told  that  at  the  first  attempt  on  the  part 
ofauy  of  their  number  to  escape,  the  "free  gang"  system, 
so  far  as  they  were  concerned,  would  be  abolished.  The 
administration,  on  the  other  hand,  undertook  that,  so  long 
as  the  political  prisoners  faithfully  observed  tlie  regula- 
tions, this  and  all  the  other  privileges  should  be  respected. 


164  RUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

Though  the  prisoners,  on  their  part,  entered  into  no  formal 
engagement  to  comply  with  these  conditions,  they  did  in 
effect  faithfully  observe  them.  Not  once  during  the  preva- 
lence of  the  "free  gang"  system  did  there  occur  any 
disorder  or  any  attempt  to  escape.  Nevertheless  the  adminis- 
tration broke  its  word  and  withdrew  the  privileges. 

This  breach  of  faith  was  instigated  by  Loris  Melikoff. 
At  the  very  time  the  dictator  was  pretending  to  better  the 
lot  of  political  prisoners,  posing  as  a  man  of  exceptional 
benevolence  and  humanity,  and,  with  a  great  flourish  of 
trumpets,  transferring  people  from  the  Central  Prisons  of 
Kharkoff  and  Mzeusk  to  Kara,  a  peremptory  order  was 
issued  withdrawing,  as  regarded  political  convicts,  the 
*•' free  gang"  system,  and  remitting  to  gaol  those  who  had 
been  provisionally  liberated.  A  strict  interdict  was  laid  on 
all  correspondence  between  themselves  and  their  kindred 
and  friends. 

The  men  who  had  only  just  been  set  at  liberty,  and  were 
looking  forward  to  permanent,  if  somewhat  restricted  free- 
dom, had  therefore  to  return  to  prison.  This  was  very 
hard  on  the  poor  fellows,  yet  keenly  as  they  felt  the  wrong 
they  were  compelled  to  resign  themselves  to  their  fate. 
The  evening  before  they  separated  and  went  back  to  their 
cells  they  had  a  last  supper.  The  meeting  was  sad,  and 
their  hearts,  as  may  be  supposed,  were  very  heavy.  For  one 
member  of  the  company  it  was  indeed  a  last  supper,  and  ended 
in  a  terrible  tragedy.  Scmenovsky,  maddened  by  despair, 
blew  out  his  brains.  In  ill  health,  nervous,  and  with  spirits 
broken  by  long  confinement,  tlie  idea  of  returning  to  prison 
was  intolerable  to  him.  He  preferred  death.  A  man  of 
high  principle  and  wide  culture,  once  an  advocate  in  St. 
Petersburg,  Semenovsky  was  sentenced  on  October  20,  187G, 
to  a  long  term  of  penal  servitude  for  simple  propagandism. 
The  administrator  telegraphed  the  news  of  his  tragic  death 
to  St.  Petersburg.     But  it  had  no  effect  on  the  Government. 


SIBERIA.  165 

SemenoTsky  was  buried,  and  his  companions  were  again  put 
in  prison. 

Nor  was  this  all.  They  were  not  only  remitted  to  con- 
finement, but  annoyed  and  teased  past  bearing,  and 
harassed  with  all  sorts  of  petty  yexations.  New  restrictions 
were  placed  on  the  visits  of  the  devoted  wives  who  had  fol- 
lowed their  husbands  to  this  far-away  and  dreary  land.  It 
was  made  more  difficult  for  the  sick  to  obtain  admission  to 
the  hospital.  But  the  greatest  grievance  of  all  was  denying 
tbem  the  solace  of  labor.  They  were  forbidden  to  work  in 
the  mines.  In  the  spring  of  1882  this  privilege,  for  as  such 
they  esteemed  it,  was  denied  to  them,  a  measure  which 
greatly  aggravated  the  hardship  of  their  lot.  The  hardest 
labor — even  tlie  toil  of  the  mines — was  a  lighter  punish- 
ment than  the  sedentary  and  solitary  monotony  of  life 
within  the  four  walls  of  their  prison  house.  Muscular 
exercise,  besides  doing  them  good  physicalh%  made  time 
pass  less  slowly  and  more  pleasantly.  But  all  the  efforts 
of  the  prisoners,  and  they  were  many,  to  obtain  the  hard 
work  to  which  they  were  condemned  proved  abortive.  It 
seemed  as  if  the  administration  was  resolved  to  let  them 
perish  slowly  for  want  of  air  and  exercise,  like  their  friends 
in  the  central  prisons.  If  we  consider  that  most  of  these 
men  were  sentenced  to  very  long  terms — twenty,  thirty, 
and  even  thirty-five  years — it  is  easy  to  understand  how 
ardently  they  must  have  longed  for  freedom,  how  eager  they 
were  to  escape.  No  wonder  that  attempts  to  get  away 
became  thenceforth  more  frequent  than  before.  How  these 
attempts  were  dealt  with  by  the  authorities  the  following 
chapter  will  show. 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

MUTUAL  KESPONSIBILITY. 

During  the  first  May  night  of  the  year  1882  the  sentinels 
of  the  political  prison  of  Lower  Kara  noticed  a  man  attempt- 
ing to  escape  by  the  workshop  window  opening  on  the  fields. 
Twice  they  fired  on  him,  and  twice  they  missed  aim.  An 
alarm  was  sonnded,  the  prisoners  were  immediately  mustered, 
and  it  was  found  that  eight  of  them,  among  whom  was 
Myshkin,  had  escaped.  When  informed  by  telegraph  of 
what  had  come  to  pass,  the  Minister  of  the  Interior  was  so 
angry  that  the  governor  of  Zabaikalia,  General  Iliashevitch 
himself,  feared  that  he  should  be  dismissed  for  not  exercis- 
ing due  vigilance,  the  more  so  as  about  ten  days  before  he 
had  inspected  the  prison  together  with  the  Senator  Galkin- 
Vrasski,  and  reported  everything  to  be  in  perfect  order. 
Fearing  for  their  places,  the  local  administration  resolved  to 
provoke  a  riot  among  the  prisoners  in  order  to  redeem  their 
characters  by  its  sui^i^ression,  and  to  atone  for  the  neglect 
that  had  caused  the  escape — which  could  then  be  explained 
by  saying  the  rules  were  too  lax,  and  that  for  prisoners  so 
intractable  ordinary  supervision  was  not  sufficiently  severe. 

On  the  4th  of  May  the  prisoners  were  ordered,  without 
further  exjolanation,  to  shave  their  heads.  They  re])lied 
that,  according  to  the  rnles  they  were  allowed  to  wear  their 
hair,  and  the  rules  being  drawn  up  by  the  Minister  of  the 
Interior,  he  only,  and  not  the  director,  had  a  right  to  change 
them. 

On  the  Gth  of  the  same  month  the  political  prisoners  were 
officially  informed  that  they  would  not  be  roughly  dealt  with, 
that  all  would  go  on  as  heretofore,  and  that  they  might 


MUTUAL   EESPOJ^^SIBILITY.  167 

make  tliomselves  easy.  Five  days  passed  in  tliis  way,  and 
the  prisoners  were  beginning  to  forget  tlio  incident.  But 
they  were  reckoning  without  their  host.  The  11th  of 
May  was  fixed  for  the  riot  and  its  suppression.  About  three 
in  the  morning  six  hundred  Cossacks,  under  the  command 
of  General  Iliaslievitch  himself,  supported  by  Colonel  Rou- 
denko,  surrounded  the  prison,  occupied  all  the  issues  with 
platoons,  aud  ordered  the  bulk  of  the  force  to  rush  upon  the 
sleeping  prisoners — of  whom,  it  should  be  added,  there  were 
only  eighty-four. 

k50  soon  as  they  were  awake  they  were  searched,  and  all 
their  belongings,  down  to  the  merest  trifles — books,  clothes, 
combs,  brushes — seized,  and  thrown  pell-mell  into  a  corner. 
This  done,  the  prisoners  were  attired  in  convict  dresses  and 
taken  into  the  courtyard.  Here  twenty-seven  "promoters" 
and  "instigators"  of  the  "riot"  were  picked  out,  and  led 
under  the  escort  of  Cossacks  to  Upper  Kara,  a  distance  of 
some  ten  miles.  Encouraged  by  their  officers,  the  Cossacks 
grossly  insulted  and  ill-used  the  prisoners  during  the  jour- 
ney, and  when  a  few  tried  to  defend  themselves,  Colonel 
Eoudenko  said,  "  Tie  their  hands  behind  them,  and  if  one 
of  th^m  says  anything  impertinent  give  him  a  knock  on  the 
head  with  the  butt-end  of  your  guns."  Meantime  the  prison 
of  Lower  Kara  was  being  pillaged.  Before  the  struggle  be- 
gan Colonel  Eoudenko  addressed  the  Cossacks  thus:  "If 
I  order  you  to  beat  them,  do  so  ;  if  I  order  you  to  fire,  shoot 
them.  When  you  have  taken  the  prison  you  shall  have 
everything  belonging  to  them."  And  the  Cossacks,  having 
subdued  the  sleeping  rioters,  set  about  pillaging  their  pos- 
sessions. The  officers,  not  to  be  outdone  by  their  men,  ap- 
propriated some  of  the  best  things — even  carrying  off  tables, 
chairs,  stools,  which  had  been  made  by  the  prisoners  them- 
selves, and  giving  them  to  their  friends. 

After  they  had  passed  some  time  in  the  empty  room,  with 
no  other  clothing  than  the  gray  regulation  cloaks,  the  depu- 


16S  RUSSIA   U^DER   THE   TZARS. 

ty-director,  Boutakov,  appeared  before  the  prisoners,  one  of 
whom  asked  : 

'*Is  it  possible  that  we  are  to  remain  in  this  state  much 
longer  ?  " 

"  Yes,  always,"  answered  Boutakov.  "  You  were  former- 
ly treated  well,  but  now,  after  these  escapes,  we  see  that  your 
conduct " 

OrlofE  observed  that  the  administration  itself  had  pro- 
voked the  escapes,  not  the  prisoners,  and  that  in  any  case  it 
was  unjust  to  make  those  who  remained  suffer  for  those  who 
had  escaped. 

This  modest  and  polite  answer  put  the  deputy-director 
into  such  a  rage  that  he  ordered  the  Cossacks  to  seize  Orloff, 
beat  him,  and  drag  him  to  the  punishment  cell.  Some  of 
his  comrades  wished  to  prevent  this,  but  he  besought  them 
to  offer  no  resistance.  When  he  was  outside  the  door. 
Colonel  Boutakov  rushed  at  him,  began  to  strike  him,  and 
ordered  the  Cossacks  to  do  the  same.  A  little  later — while 
the  prisoners  were  dining — the  director  came  in  person, 
mustered  them,  and  told  them  to  **get  up."  Some  did  not 
obey  with  sufficient  promptitude.  •'  Make  them  get  up  with 
blows,"  ordered  the  director,  and  afresh  summary  execution 
began.  "This  is  the  way  to  muster,"  said  he,  with  great 
satisfaction,  going  out  after  the  disturbance.  In  the  next 
room  a  similar  scene  was  being  enacted,  under  the  command 
of  the  captain  of  the  guard.  When  he  entered,  the  student 
Bobokhov  was  lying  on  the  plank.  The  captain,  turning  to 
his  Cossacks,  ordered  them  to  "drag  him  up  by  the  hair," 
and  by  the  hair  he  was  dragged  up. 

Eodionoff,  quite  a  young  man,  was  also  beaten  by  the 
director  himself,  who,  when  he  was  tired,  handed  the  victim 
over  to  his  Cossacks,  telling  them  to  "  give  him  as  much  as 
he  could  carry."  After  this  Rodionoff  was  put  into  the 
black  hole  for  thirty  days. 

This  took  place  at  Lower  Kara  ;  but  the  men  who  had 


MUTUAL   RESPONSIBILITY.  169 

been  taken  to  the  two  other  prisons  came  off  no  better,  save 
that  in  one  instance,  at  Upper  Kara,  the  soldiers,  to  their 
honor,  absolutely  refused  to  beat  them.  Those  at  the  Amour 
prison  were  more  complaisant,  thereby  suggesting  Gerasi- 
moff's  grim  bon  mot,  '*  We  are  beaten  twice  a  day,  and  fed 
once." 

In  the  summer  of  1882  the  Lower  Kara  lock-up  was  re- 
built on  a  new  plan.  The  large  common  rooms  were  divided 
into  small  cells,  where  five  and  six  men  were  made  to  sleep  to- 
gether on  the  same  bed,  so  tightly  wedged  that  it  was  diffi- 
cult to  move,  and  impossible  to  turn.  The  prisoners  who 
had  been  dispersed  in  the  other  gaols  were  brought  back 
(except  fourteen  sent  to  Schliisselburg  as  *' promoters  "), 
and  everybody  was  put  in  irons.  Three  were  chained  (the 
chains  being  fastened  with  rivets)  to  wheelbarrows,  which 
they  had,  of  course,  to  drag  with  them  everywhere.  Then, 
to  render  flight  more  difficult — or  rather,  recapture  more 
easy — the  left  half  of  each  man's  head  was  clean  shaven,  an 
operation  which  was  effected  with  some  circumstance,  the 
authorities  probably  fearing  that  the  indignity  might  be 
forcibly  resisted.  The  prisoners  were  called  one  by  one  into 
a  room,  as  they  supposed,  to  be  questioned  touching  their 
knowledge  of  the  escape.  The  victim  was  then  surrounded 
by  soldiers,  and  asked  if  he  would  submit  quietly ;  if  not 
they  threatened  to  tie  his  hands  and  shave  his  head  by  force. 
Eesistance  in  these  circumstances  was,  of  course,  not  at- 
tempted. 

All  the  werk  of  the  prison  was  done  by  the  convicts  them- 
selves ;  they  cleaned  their  own  rooms,  washed  their  own 
linen,  and  prepared  their  own  meals.  But  whatever  they 
did  they  were  under  strict  and  continual  supervision,  being 
never  left  a  moment  to  themselves.  Then,  as  if  to  fill  the 
measure  of  their  misery  to  the  full,  a  common  malefactor, 
named  Zijjloff,  was  brought  amongst  them.     He  had  carried 

letters  between  some  of  the  political  prisoners,  an  offence 
8 


170  RUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

■which,  as  the  admiuistration  chose  to  think,  qualified  him 
for  their  company.  Yet,  so  far  from  approving  of  the 
change,  Ziplolf  begged  and  prayed  to  be  allowed  to  go  back 
to  his  old  quarters.  But  the  administration  had  other  views. 
One  day  he  was  called  into  the  office,  charged  with  some 
trilling  breach  of  descipline  of  ancient  date,  and  ordered  to 
be  flogged.  The  punishment  was  duly  inflicted  under  the 
personal  suj)ervision  of  Commandant  Kaltourin  himself. 
What  this  meant  the  others  know  only  too  well.  It  was  a 
warning,  an  intimation  made  in  the  most  forcible  way  possi- 
ble, that  the  political  prisoners  were  no  longer  to  enjoy  im- 
munity from  corporal  punishment ;  and  shortly  afterwards  it 
was  rumored  that  the  fugitives,  all  of  whom  had  meanwhile 
been  recaptured  (Myshkin  at  the  very  moment  when  he  had  got 
on  board  an  American  ship  at  Vladivostock,  bound  for  San 
Francisco),  would  be  publicly  flogged.  The  cup  of  their 
sufferings,  already  full  to  the  brim,  now  ran  over.  The 
prisoners  resolved  that,  rather  than  submit  to  this  new 
degradation,  they  would  die  ;  and,  notwithstanding  the 
desire  of  a  considerable  minority  to  adopt  a  more  energetic 
form  of  protest,  it  was  decided  that  they  should  die  of 
hunger. 

Then  began  a  long  fast,  a  terrible  ordeal  for  men  weak- 
ened with  hardship  and  by  confinement.  All  went  to  bed, 
and  were  soon  reduced  by  abstinence  to  a  state  of  utter  pros- 
tration. In  seven  days  they  had  almost  lost  pow' er  of  speech, 
and  could  not  answer  to  their  names  at  roll  call,  a  formality 
which  takes  place  three  times  a  day.  Then  the  directors,  who 
had  hitherto  cherished  the  hope  that  the  jirisoners,  tor- 
mented by  the  pangs  of  hunger,  would  give  up  the  contest, 
saw  that  matters  were  come  to  a  crisis.  They  entered  the  cells, 
regarded  in  silence  the  inanimate  forms  of  the  sufferers,  and 
the  gravity  of  their  looks  showed  how  much  they  were  con- 
cerned. Next  came  Commandant  Kaltourin,  who,  after 
asking  what  they  wanted,  had  their  demands  put  in  writing. 


MUTUAL  RESPONSIBIUTY.  171 

and  promised  to  communicate  immediately  by  telegraph  with 
the  governor  of  the  province,  Iliaschevitch.  He  assured 
them,  moreover,  on  his  own  responsibility,  that  there  was 
neither  truth  in  tiie  rumors  they  had  heard,  nor  any  inten- 
tion to  abolish  the  rules  which  proscribed  the  flogging  of 
political  prisoners.  But  as  no  confirmation  of  this  state- 
ment was  received  from  General  Iliaschevitch  the  voluntary 
famine  continued.  But  it  could  not  go  on  much  longer. 
The  fasters  were  on  the  point  of  death.  They  suffered  from 
convulsions,  sleeplessness,  and  dysentery.  A  few,  who  from 
the  first  had  objected  to  this  form  of  resistance  and  taken  no 
part  in  it,  now  adjured  their  companions  to  abandon  the 
contest  before  it  was  too  late.  Their  persuasions,  together 
with  something  else  that  happened  of  great  importance — 
the  nature  of  which,  however,  our  correspondent  did  not 
feel  himself  at  liberty  to  mention — ^prevailed  at  last  on  the 
strikers  to  terminate  their  fast — on  the  thirteenth  day  after 
it  had  begun.  This  terrible  struggle,  which  permanently 
injured  the  health  of  most  of  the  prisoners  who  engaged  in 
it,  had  no  other  result  than  a  few  concessions,  and  a  not 
very  definite  assurance  from  the  administration  that  their 
exemption  from  corporal  punishment  would  be  continued. 

In  this  way  did  the  administration  avenge  on  the  prisoners 
the  abortive  flight  of  a  few  of  their  companions.  Nor  was 
this  the  full  extent  of  their  punishment.  Sixteen  men,  who 
at  the  time  of  what  is  known  as  ''the  revolt  of  the  11th  of 
May  "  had  finished  their  term,  and  were  entitled,  according 
to  the  regulations,  to  become  free  Siberian  colonists,  were 
kept  in  prison  another  year.  Even  political  prisoners  else- 
where (Kviatkovski,  Zoubrilloff,  and  Frangeoli),  who  did 
not  even  know  of  the  escapes,  were  dealt  with  in  like  man- 
ner. In  1883,  however,  they  were  released,  those  first  set 
free  being  sent  as  colonists  to  the  province  of  Baikal.  But 
when  Shoubin,  the  new  commandant  of  the  political  prisons, 
reported  to  Governor  Iliaschevitch  that  the  Kara  prisoners 


173  RUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

still  manifested  "a  spirit  of  iudocility,"  he  ordered  the 
colonists,  and  thirteen  others  whose  terms  had  also  expired — 
"by  way  of  giving  them  a  lesson  " — to  be  exiled  to  a  village 
in  the  far  north,  the  region  of  the  polar  night,  among  the 
savage  Yakutes,  where  life  is,  if  possible,  even  harder  than 
in  the  prisons.  This  is  what  they  call  in  Russia  '^mutual 
responsibility." 

Among  the  colonists  was  a  young  woman  of  the  name  of 
Maria  Koutitonskaia,  who,  after  the  affair  of  May  11th,  had 
been  released  from  jail  and  "  interned  "'  in  a  village  of  the 
province.  That  is  to  say,  she  was  free  to  go  about  but  not 
to  go  away.  This  girl-heroine  resolved  with  her  own  hand 
to  avenge  the  cruel  outrages  inflicted  by  the  authorities  on 
innocent  and  helpless  prisoners.  After  obtaining  a  small 
revolver,  she  started  secretly  for  Chita,  where  lived  General 
Iliaschevitch,  the  Governor.  Arrested  as  a  fugitive,  she  was 
taken  to  Chita — exactly  where  she  wanted  to  go.  On  her 
arrival  thither  she  asked  to  see  the  Governor,  saying  that  she 
wanted  to  explain  to  him  personally  why  she  had  left  Aksha. 
There  being  no  reason  why  this  request  should  not  be  com- 
plied with,  she  was  taken  straightway  to  the  palace  ;  and  as 
General  Iliaschevitch  came  out  of  his  cabinet,  Maria  drew 
her  revolver,  and  with  the  words,  "  This  is  the  answer  to 
the  11th  of  May,"  fired  at  him  point  blank.  The  ball  struck 
the  Governor  in  the  abdomen,  and  he  fell,  badly  wounded, 
to  the  ground.  Maria  was,  of  course,  immediately  arrested 
and  put  in  prison.  She  was  afterwards  tried  and  condemned 
to  death,  but  the  Government  deemed  it  expedient  to  com- 
mute this  sentence  to  one  of  hard  labor  for  life. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say,  however,  that  this  incident 
had  very  little  effect  on  the  lot  of  the  prisoners  of  Kara. 
The  barbarities  and  cruelties  we  have  described  went  on 
without  surcease. 

Such  is  life  in  the  political  prisons  of  Siberia,  the  promised 
land  toward  which  revolutionists   under  sentence  of  penal 


MUTUAL  KESPONSIlilLITT.  173 

servitude  turn  longing  eyes.  And  it  is  certainly  an  improve- 
ment on  the  Fortress.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  very  little, 
if  any,  better  than  detention  in  a  Central  Prison.  If  in  this 
latter  place  of  punishment  the  torture  inflicted  on  prisoners 
is  more  sustained  and  systematic,  in  Siberian  jails  they  are 
more  exposed  to  the  violence  and  brutality  of  warders  and 
guards  ;  for  long-continued  immunit}^,  the  absence  of  all 
control,  and  the  evil  traditions  of  despotism,  have  trans- 
formed the  jailers  of  our  hyperborean  prisons  into  veritable 
tyrants.  "For  you  I  am  Chief,  and  Tzar,  and  God,"  is  a 
stereotyped  expression  in  the  mouths  of  these  Cerberuses, 
when  addressing  a  prisoner. 

Time  fails  me  to  recount  a  hundredth  part  of  the  known 
atrocities  inflicted  on  the  victims  of  despotism  in  every  part 
of  Siberia,  and  on  every  possible  pretext.  And  how  much 
greater  is  the  number  of  those  we  do  not,  nor  ever  shall 
know  ! 

But  an  instance  of  the  sort  of  treatment  which  women 
receive  at  the  hands  of  the  Siberian  servants  of  the  Tzar  is 
too  relevant  and  characteristic  to  be  omitted. 

The  victim  on  this  occasion  was  Olga  Lioubatovitch,  one 
of  the  heroines  of  the  trial  of  the  fifty  propagandists  who, 
as  the  reader  may  possibly  remember,  won  to  so  remarkable 
a  degree  the  sympathy  of  the  public.  On  August  30,  18S3, 
as  Olga  (who  once  escaped  from  Siberia,  reached  Geneva, 
then  returned  to  Eussia,  only  to  fall  a  second  time  into  the 
toils)  was  passing  through  Krasnoiarsk  on  her  way  to  her 
destination  in  Eastern  Siberia,  she  was  called  before  the 
ispravnik  (local  chief  of  police)  and  ordered  to  change  the 
dress  she  wore  for  the  costume  of  a  convict.  But  having 
been  condemned  to  transportation  by  administrative  order — 
not  to  hard  labor— she  had  a  right  to  wear  her  own  clothes, 
and  this  she  tried  to  make  the  ispravnik  understand.  At 
her  first  words,  however,  he  became  furious,  and  repeated 
that  she  must  not  only  change  her  dress,  but  do  it  there  and 


174  RUSSIA    UNDER   THE   TZARS. 

then  in  the  bureau,  before  everybody.  To  this  monstrous 
request  Olga  Lioubatov'itch  answered  by  a  plump  refusal. 
Then  at  a  sign  from  the  isprav7iik  his  subordinates  took 
hold  of  the  j^risoner  and  proceeded  to  undress  her  by  force. 
A  shameful  struggle  ensued.  Several  men  set  on  this  de- 
fenceless woman,  beat  her,  pulled  her  hair,  and  tore  off  her 
clothes.  So  long  as  she  kept  her  feet  she  defended  herself 
as  best  she  could,  but  the  chief  of  the  police  by  a  violent 
kick  felled  her  to  the  earth.  What  follows  is  best  described 
in  her  own  words  : 

"  I  fell  into  a  kind  of  stupor.  I  remember  confusedly  how  the 
licaAT"  boot  of  the  ispravnik  struck  my  chest.  Some  one  was  pulling 
my  hair,  another  was  striking  my  face  with  his  fists  ;  the  rest  were 
tearing  off  my  clothes,  and  at  last,  naked,  crucified  on  the  floor,  in 
the  presence  of  a  crowd  of  men,  I  felt  all  the  shame  and  horror  of  a 
woman  violated.  Alarmed  by  their  own  deed,  the  cowards  fled,  and 
when  I  recovered  consciousness  I  saw  around  me  only  my  companions, 
pale  as  death,  while  Fanny  Moreiness  was  writhing  in  hysterical  con- 
vulsions." 

But  enough,  enough  !  The  sufferings  of  the  Nihilists 
are  truly  terrible,  and,  as  being  the  noblest  holocaust  ever 
offered  by  ]iatriots  on  the  altar  of  a  country's  redemption, 
worthy  of  all  sympathy  and  respect.  Yet  com.pared  with 
the  trials  and  sufferings  of  Eussia  at  large  they  are  only  a 
drop — a  bitter  and  burning  drop,  but  not  to  be  compared 
with  the  ocean  of  which  they  form  so  small  a  part. 

Let  us  explore  this  ocean. 


PART    III. 
ADMINISTRATIVE     EXILE. 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

INNOCENT   THEREFORE    PUNISHED. 

The  judicial  procedure,  of  which  the  complete  cycle — 
from  arrest  to  punishment — we  have  already  described,  is 
far  from  including  all  the  means  employed  by  the  Russian 
Government  in  its  struggle  with  revolution. 

Tribunals  from  their  very  nature  must  deal  with  facts. 
However  great  may  be  their  severity,  however  willing  they 
may  be  to  conform  to  orders,  impute  motives,  and  visit 
trifling  misdeeds  with  draconian  punishments,  they  must,  at 
least,  have  something  to  go  upon.  In  other  words,  they 
cannot  convict  a  man  because  he  is  innocent.  If  a  person 
be  found  in  possession  of  a  revolutionary  proclamation,  or 
if  he  lends  his  room  for  revolutionary  purposes,  he  may  be 
condemned  to  death  ;  but  if  no  overt  act,  no  equivocal  ex- 
pression, no  compromising  conduct  whatsoever  can  be 
brouglit  home  to  him,  they  are  obliged  to  pronounce  a  ver- 
dict of  acquittal.  This  depends  not  on  the  quality  of  the 
jud'^es  but  on  the  nature  of  tribunals. 

The  ordinary  m.etliods  of  prosecution  are  therefore  essen- 
tially circumscribed.  They  can  be  used  only  against  offen- 
ders who  have  given  some  manifest  sign  of  hostility  to  the 
existing  system,  or  openly  or  covertly  attacked  the  Govern- 
ment. 


17G  EUSSIA    UXDER   THE   TZARS. 

How,  then,  are  those  to  be  dealt  with  who  have  done  none 
of  these  things,  yet  who,  there  is  every  reason  to  believe, 
will  do  them  sooner  or  later  ? 

Let  us  take  an  exami:)le.  A  man  who  has  had  secret 
relations  with  the  revolutionary  party  and  falls  under  sus- 
picion is  arrested,  questioned,  and  badgered  in  the  usual 
fashion,  and  kept  in  prison  several  months.  But  neither  in 
his  own  admissions  nor  in  any  other  way  can  a  scintilla 
of  evidence  be  found  against  him.  In  no  single  respect 
can  he  be  considered  a  compromised  person,  and  it  is  impos-  ' 
sible,  by  any  stretch  of  ingenuity,  to  include  him  in  the  in- 
dictment of  those  who  are  supposed  to  be  his  confederates 
and  friends.  So  he  is  let  out  on  bail,  and  subpoenaed  as  a 
simple  witness.  But  by  his  conduct  under  examination 
and  before  the  tribunal,  by  his  unwillingness  to  testify  against 
the  accused  and  his  eagerness  to  testify  in  their  favor,  ho 
shows  only  too  clearly  that  he  is  a  sympathizer  with  them 
in  spirit  if  not  a  confederate  in  fact. 

Against  another  man,  perhaps,  the  public  prosecutor  has 
succeeded  in  gathering  some  miserable  scraps  of  equivocal 
evidence,  and  so  includes  him  in  the  indictment.  So  equiv- 
ocal is  it,  indeed,  that  the  tribunal,  with  all  the  will 
in  the  world  to  oblige  the  procurator,  has  no  alterna- 
tive but  either  to  acquit  the  prisoner  altogether  or  give  him 
a  nominal  sentence.  There  is  nevertheless  good  reason  to 
believe  that  this  individual  is  just  ?i& perverse  as  those  of  his 
friends  who  nave  allowed  themselves  to  be  taken  in  the  act, 
and  been  sentenced  to  penal  servitude.  Wlio  can  say  that 
this  absence  of  proof  is  not  the  result  of  pure  accident  ? 
And  even  if  he  has  done  nothing  so  far,  what  signifies  that  ? 
It  is  only  because  he  has  had  no  opportunity— ^that  is  all. 
Being  a  revolutionist  in  intention,  he  is  sure  to  take  action 
on  the  first  favorable  occasion.  It  is  merely  a  question  of 
time.  Put  him  outside  the  court  certainly,  but  only  that 
he  may  be  forthwith  re-arrested. 


IXKOCEXT  THEEEFOKE   PUNISHED.  177 

For  liow  can  the  police  let  these  men,  whom  they  hare 
the  chance  of  collaring,  depart  in  peace  ?  It  would  be  as 
bad  as  letting  prisoners  of  war  rejoin  the  enemy.  It  cannot 
be  done. 

But  let  us  leave  judicial  considerations  to  lawyers  and  ex- 
perts, and  regard  the  question  in  another  aspect  and  from  a 
general  point  of  view.  Let  us  take  the  case  of  a  man  so  free 
from  reproach  that  he  can  neither  be  arraigned  as  a  prisoner 
nor  called  as  a  witness.  But  "from  information  it  has  re- 
ceived" (the  reports  of  spies),  the  Government  feels  sure 
that  he  is  a  revolutionist.  When  this  conviction  is  enter- 
tained about  a  man,  absence  of  proof  is  held  of  no  account. 
The  police  and  procurators  have  a  very  high  opinion  of  the 
integrity  of  their  country's  revolutionists.  They  firmly  be- 
lieve that  these  men  always  possess  the  courage  of  their 
opinions  and  act  according  to  the  dictates  of  their  con- 
science. Want  of  evidence  serves  only  to  increase  their  sus- 
picion. None  who  have  had  dealings  with  our  procurators 
and  gendarmes  can  fail  to  have  heard,  twenty  times,  the 
stereotyped  phrase  :  *'  We  know  quite  well  there  are  no 
proofs  against  so  and  so — your  husband,  brother,  sister,  or 
friend — but  that  only  makes  them  the  more  dangerous ;  it 
shows  that  they  have  arranged  matters  so  cleverly  that  the 
police  can  find  nothing  out." 

Once  the  wolf  has  been  discovered  under  the  lion's  skin 
measures  must  be  taken  to  disarm  the  enemy  of  order  and 
society.  If  these  words,  ''order"  and  "society,"  were  un- 
derstood in  their  accepted  signification,  an  ordinary  govern- 
ment might  deem  it  expedient  to  wait  a  while  and  defer 
somewhat  to  considerations  of  general  utility  and  public  de- 
cency. But  if  "order"  means  its  ov/n  skin,  and  "society" 
its  own  pocket,  tliis  becomes  a  psychological  impossibility. 
A  government  ruling  a  nation  as  a  conquered  country,  a 
government  hemmed  in  by  enemies  on  every  side,  with  every 
thought  concentrated  on  its  own  defence,  and  possessed  of 
8* 


178  RUSSIA   UKDER  THE  TZAES. 

unlimited  power  to  make  that  defence  good — such  a  govern- 
ment as  this  was  sure,  sooner  or  later,  to  supplement  the 
ordinary  judicial  procedure  with  another,  a  prompter,  and  a 
more  subtle  system,  designed  to  redress  its  failures  and  cor- 
rect its  sliortcomings — to  do  that  which,  in  the  nature  of 
things,  it  was  out  of  the  question  the  former  should  do. 

This  system  is  known  as  the  "administrative  procedure." 
It  involves  a  division  of  labor.  The  tribunal  jDunishes,  the 
administration  prevents.  The  tribunal  deals  with  acts,  the 
administration  with  intentions.  The  tribunal  searches  peo- 
ple's houses  and  pockets,  the  administration  looks  into 
men's  hearts  and  reads  their  thoughts. 

When  the  administration  has  decided  that  a  man  has  it  in 
his  mind  to  do  them  an  ill  turn,  they  place  him  under  the 
supervision  of  the  police. 

In  this,  taken  by  itself,  there  is  nothing  extraordinary  or 
extreme — at  any  rate,  on  the  Continent,  where  it  is  quite  in 
the  common  course  of  things  to  submit  people  to  jjolice  sur- 
veillance. But  between  the  practice  of  G-ermany  and  France 
and  the  practice  of  Russia  there  is  this  great  difference:  in  the 
former  countries  only  malefactors  who  have  been  tried  and 
convicted  are  placed  under  supervision,  whereas  in  Eussia 
men  are  treated  after  this  fashion  who  have  been  tried  and 
acquitted,  as  also  men  who  never  have  been  tried  or  even 
accused.  But  wide  as  is  this  difference,  it  is  not  all.  There 
is  supervision  and  supervision.  In  its  common  acceptation 
the  word  means  that  the  police  will  keep  its  eye  upon  you. 
How  they  do  this  is  their  affair  and  that  of  their  spies.  All 
that  is  required  of  you  is  to  inform  them  of  any  change  in 
your  address.  In  Russia,  however,  it  is  very  much  other- 
vrise.  In  Russia  the  marked  man  is  required  so  to  arrange 
matters  that  the  supervisors  shall  have  every  facility  for  per- 
forming their  task  and  be  able  to  watch  their  man  without 
giving  themselves  too  much  trouble.  Suppose,  for  instance, 
that  a  man  living  at  Odessa  is  ordered  to  be  placed  under 


I]Sr3<rOCEN"T  THEKEFOEE   PUKISHED.  1?9 

supervision.  The  jiolice,  in  that  case,  would  probably  declare 
it  to  be  quite  out  of  their  power  to  supervise  him  elt'ectuully 
except  at  a  place  some  thousand  versts  or  more  away.  Ou 
this,  our  man  would  be  promptly  sent  to  the  locality  desig- 
nated and  forced  to  remain  there  until  the  police  had  done 
with  him.  Hence  police  supervision  in  Russia  is  but  an- 
other name  for  administrative  exile. 

The  right  of  putting  people  under  surveillance,  which  the 
Russian  criminal  code,  like  the  codes  of  France  and  Ger- 
many, reserves  exclusively  to  the  courts  of  justice  as  a  peni- 
tential measure,  the  administration  exercises  arbitrarily  with- 
out the  least  scruple.  It  orders  into  exile  with  equal  indif- 
ference persons  who  have  been  tried  and  acquitted,  witnesses 
who  have  testified  truly,  and  citizens  who,  for  some  inscru- 
table reasons,  are  simjily  suspected  of  latent  sedition.  We 
therefore  come  to  this — that  the  liability  of  Russian  subjects 
to  be  exiled  is  limited  only  by  the  good  pleasure  of  the  gen- 
darmery  and  the  police.  Under  the  pretext  that  an  exile's 
conduct  has  not  been  satisfactory,  moreover,  the  term  of  his 
banishment  may  be  indefinitely  prolonged.  Thus  in  the 
affair  of  the  Netchaeff  Society  (autumn,  1871),  when  of 
eighty-seven  prisoners  thirty-three  were  convicted  and  thirty- 
four  acquitted,  the  latter  v/ere  exiled  with  hardly  an  excep- 
tion, as  also  several  witnesses  whom  the  procurator  had  not 
ventured  to  indict.  Among  the  exiled,  as  is  well  known, 
was  Miss  Vera  Zassoulitch.  She  passed  several  years  in 
exile,  and  only  recovered  her  liberty  by  flight.  Mr.  Nikiforoff, 
a  kinsman  of  hers,  and  one  of  the  witnesses  on  the  trial,  was 
also  exiled,  and  though  fourteen  years  have  elapsed  is  in 
exile  still. 

Administrative  exile  played  an  important  part  even  during 
the  first  period  of  the  revolutionary  movement.  The  thing 
was  so  common  that  when  it  was  mentioned  that  these  or 
those  persons  had  been  acquitted  at  this  or  that  trial,  the  first 
question  asked  was  invariably,     ''And  whither    are  they 


180  KUSSIA   U2!?'DER  THE  TZARS. 

exiled  ?"  This  obsoryation  implied  neither  irony  nor  doubt 
— was  so  natural,  indeed,  that  only  the  fact  of  their  not  be- 
ing exiled  would  have  called  forth  an  expression  of  surprise. 
Sometimes  the  police  play  with  their  victim  after  the  man- 
ner of  a  cat  with  a  mouse.  In  1878  ilr.  Alexander  Olkhin, 
a  member  of  the  St.  Petersburg  bar,  being  suspected  of 
having  secret  relations  with  the  revolutionary  party — albeit 
there  was  not  a  shred  of  evidence  against  him — was  exiled  to 
Kholm.ogori  in  the  government  of  Archangelsk,  Two  years 
later,  the  police  imagined  they  had  found  the  desired  proof, 
whereupon  Mr.  Olkhin  was  brought  back  to  St.  Petersburg 
and  put  on  his  trial.  But  the  iiolice  had  been  in  too  great 
haste.  The  proofs  were  too  flimsy  even  for  the  most  pliable 
of  tribunals  ;  the  jirisoner  was  iironounced  not  guilty  (the 
Mirsky  trial,  November,  1879).  But  this  result  had  not  the 
slightest  effect  on  the  police,  they  exiled  Mr.  Olkhin  afresh, 
and  his  second  condition  was  worse  than  his  first. 

To  finish,  I  will  cite  a  well-known  name,  that  of  Prince 
Alexis  Krapotkiii,  brother  to  Prince  Peter,  a  mathematician 
and  astronomer  who  never  concerned  himself  with  politics. 
His  fault  was  being  akin  to  Peter  aud  not  showing  sufficient 
respect  for  the  gendarmes.  In  the  autumn  of  187G  the  post- 
office  having  intercepted  a  letter  which,  as  the  police  sus- 
pected, was  destined  for  a  political  refugee  whose  acquain- 
tance Alexis  had  made  while  travelling  abroad,  they 
searched  his  house.  No  confirmation  of  their  suspicion  was 
forthcoming,  but  the  prince  imprudently  showed  annoyance 
at  this  proceeding,  treated  the  procurator  and  gendarmes 
with  scant  courtesy,  and,  to  use  an  idiomatic  Anglicism, 
"  gave  them  a  piece  of  his  mind."  Imprisonment  produced 
no  change  in  his  demeanor,  and  in  the  end  they  sent  him  to 
Siberia.  This  came  to  pass  nine  years  ago,  and  he  is  in 
Siberia  still,  ruined  in  health  and  bereft  of  his  only  son. 

All  the  exiles  of  this  period  were  banished  by  subterfuge. 
While  nominally  placed    under    police  surveillance  as   a 


IJSTNOCENT  THEEEFORE   PUKISHED.  181 

measure  of  precaution,  tlicy  were  sent  to  the  confines  of 
the  empire  as  a  matter  of  fact,  and  there  detained.  Thus 
was  committed  a  double  wrong.  In  the  first  instance, 
these  people  were  punished  without  trial,  in  itself  a  gross 
illegality  ;  in  the  second  instance,  they  were  not  alone  placed 
under  surveillance  without  warrant,  but  this  surveillance, 
equally  without  warrant,  was  converted  by  a  piece  of  casuis- 
try into  a  sentence  of  unlimited  transportation.  The  code, 
it  may  be  well  to  mention,  recognizes  no  such  thing  as  ad- 
ministrative exile.  This,  however,  is  a  consideration  which 
has  little  interest  for  Eussians,  and,  save  legists,  few  ever 
give  it  a  thouglit. 

In  1879,  however,  the  reproach  in  question  was  removed, 
and  for  six  years  administrative  exile  has  been  a  recognized 
bulwark  of  order  and  a  regular  Eussian  institution.  On 
April  the  2nd  of  the  year  in  question,  Solovielf  attempted 
the  Tzar's  life.  On  the  Gth — three  days  later — a  new  law 
was  ordained  whereby  all  Eussia,  habited  and  habitable,  was 
divided  into  six  regions,  under  the  rule  of  six  generals,  each 
in  his  own  region  clothed  with  despotic  powers.  The  local 
civil  authorities  were  ordered  to  render  these  satraps  the 
same  obedience  which  they  would  render  in  a  state  of  war  to 
a  general-in-chief.  The  six  dictators,  moreover,  had  the 
same  powers  as  are  wielded  by  a  commander-in-chief  in  war 
time  over  all  the  inhabitants  of  their  respective  districts. 
These  powers  included  (a)  the  right  to  exile  by  administra- 
tive order  all  persons  whose  continued  stay  in  the  district 
might  be  considered  prejudicial  (to  public  order)  ;  (p)  to 
imprison  at  their  discretion  all  persons,  without  distinction 
of  rank  or  title,  whenever  they  might  find  it  advisable ; 
(c)  to  suppress,  or  provisionally  suspend,  any  journal  or 
review  the  tendencies  of  which  might  seem  to  them  danger- 
ous ;  and  (d)  generally  take  such  measures  as  they  might 
deem  necessary  for  the  maintenance  of  tranquillity  and  order 
in  the  regions  over  which  they  v»'ere  placed. 


182  RUSSIA   UXDER  THE  TZARS. 

This  in  Russia  they  call  a  law  !  Since  April,  1879,  there- 
fore, administrative  exile  has  become  perfectly  legal.  In  the 
same  way,  when  the  six  satrapies  were  abolished,  the  coun- 
try was  placed  in  '*a  state  of  surety"  (for  surety  read 
*•' siege  "),  and  the  exceptional  powers  intrusted  to  the  gen- 
erals were  permanently  conferred  on  the  ordinary  govern- 
ors. 

Since  that  time  the  system  of  administrative  exile  has  re- 
ceived a  great  extension  and  become  the  favorite  weapon  of 
the  Russian  Government  in  its  contest  with  the  nation — 30 
much  so  that  de  facto  juridic  jjrocedure  is  relegated  more 
and  more  to  the  background. 

When  Solovieff's  attempt  was  followed  by  several  others,  the 
Government  fell  into  a  very  paroxysm  of  panic  and  passion. 
It  felt  the  ground  shaking  under  its  feet,  it  tried  to  spread 
terror  everywhere,  to  strike  hard,  to  tear  up  sedition  by  the 
roots.  For  this  end  exile  was  far  more  effective  than  the 
tribunals,  with  their  forms,  ceremonies,  and  delays  ;  and  on 
the  least  suspicion,  real  or  feigned,  the  least  sign  or  the 
flimsiest  pretext,  it  was  applied  right  and  left.  It  became  a 
pest,  a  devastation. 

If,  however,  the  reader  were  to  ask  me  to  define,  more  or 
less  precisely,  the  signs  and  pretexts  which  the  administra- 
tion deem  sufficient  to  justify  the  infliction  of  so  severe  a 
punishment  as  exile,  I  should  find  it  difficult  to  give  a  satis- 
factory answer.  Everything  has  its  measure,  even  the  sus- 
ceptibility of  the  Russian  police.  As  in  chemistry  there  are 
substances  whose  presence  is  manifested  by  very  energetic 
reactions,  but  the  detection  of  which  defies  the  most  delicate 
scales,  so  it  is  with  the  police.  Except  in  cases  where  per- 
sonal antipathy  or  private  vengeance  is  the  motive  (cases 
which  are  far  from  being  exceptional),  the  police,  before 
they  tear  a  man  from  his  family  and  his  business,  deprive 
him  of  his  livelihood,  and  send  him  to  the  other  extremity  of 
the  empire,  must  have  something  against  him.     What  this 


INifOCEKT  THEREFOIIE   PUNISHED.  183 

something  may  be  we  can  form  an  approximate  idea  from 
incidents  that  have  actually  occurred,  cases  in  which  it  has 
been  possible  to  obtain  information  as  to  the  motives  of  the 
police  in  sending  people  into  exile.  In  many  instances  it  is 
impossible  even  to  conjecture  these  motives,  and  I  jrarposely 
confine  myself  to  cases  in  which  the  victims  have  been  of 
good  social  position,  for  to  them  the  Government  generally 
shows  somewhat  more  consideration  than  to  people  of  in- 
ferior rank. 

We  will  begin  with  Mr.  Petrounkevitch,  landowner,  mem- 
ber of  the  Zemstvo  of  Tchernigoff,  and  president  of  the 
justices  of  peace  of  his  district.  In  May,  1879,  this 
gentleman  was  arrested  by  order  of  the  Minister  of  the  In- 
terior, the  ground  assigned  for  the  proceeding  being  his 
dangerous  opinions  as  manifested  in  an  official  report  of  the 
local  Zemstvo,  drawn  up  by  a  commission,  of  which  Mr. 
Petrounkevitch  was  the  chairman,  in  answer  to  a  ministerial 
circular.  He  was  taken  in  open  day  while  busied  with  his 
official  diities  ;  and,  without  being  allowed  to  say  a  word  to 
his  family,  hurried  off  under  police  escort  to  Moscow,  and 
sent  thence  to  Varnavin,  in  the  government  of  Kestroma. 

About  the  same  time  was  arrested  Dr.  Bely,  the  medical 
officer  of  the  same  Zemstvo.  As  his  name  was  not  appended 
to  the  report  in  question,  and  he  took  no  part  in  the  pro- 
ceedings of  the  Zemstvo,  the  ''perversity"  imputed  to  him 
could  not  be  inferred  from  his  acts  or  his  words — it  had  to 
be  divined  by  intuition,  read  in  his  heart.  This  duty  was 
undertaken  by  the  parish  priest  of  Ivangorod,  a  sort  of  duty 
for  which  priests  in  general  have  a  decided  predilection.  Ho 
denounced  Dr.  Bely  as  '' evil-intentioned  and  a  suspect"  on 
the  following  grounds  (which  I  give  textually)  :  "  That  the 
doctor  was  personally  acquainted  with  Petrounkevitch,  upon 
whom  he  was  in  the  habit  of  calling  (in  which,  seeing  that 
they  lived  within  a  few  miles  of  each  other,  there  was  surely 
nothing  very  extraordinary),  and  whose  opinions,  the  per- 


184  EUSSIA   U^^'DEE  THE  TZAES. 

Tersifcy  of  which  was  well  known,  he  shared."  The  priest 
alleged  further  that  Dr.  Bely  showed  a  decided  partiality  for 
the  company  of  peasants  ;  that  he  seldom  went  into  the 
town,  where  there  was  good  society,  preferring  rather  to  re- 
main in  the  village  among  his  peasant  neighbors ;  that  he 
did  not  bestow  sufficient  care  on  the  health  of  the  local 
nobility,  neglecting  his  patients  of  that  class  in  order  to  give 
more  time  to  his  humbler  patients  ;  that  in  his  hospital  were 
two  young  ladies,  one  of  whom  wore  the  national  folks' 
dress  (this  was  Miss  Bogolubova,  who  had  been  a  Sister  of 
Mercy  in  the  army  of  the  Balkans.  She  was  arrested  a  few 
dqys  after  Dr.  Bely,  and  exiled  nobody  knows  whither). 
The  facts  set  forth  by  the  priest,  leaving  no  doubt  as  to  the 
doctor's  perversity,  Mr.  Malakhoff,  the  pristav  (subaltern 
officer  of  police),  had  him  arrested  on  July  1 9th.  He  was 
first  sent  under  escort  to  Vychny-Volotchek,  and  then  exiled 
to  Eastern  Siberia — neither  more  nor  less. 

Mr.  Jujakoff,  a  distinguished  press  writer  and  publicist, 
son  of  a  major-general  and  rich  landowner  of  the  south  of 
Kussia,  was  exiled  by  Todleben  to  Eastern  Siberia  on  the 
following  grounds  (textual)  :  (!)  because  he  belonged  to  a 
dangerous  family,  all  the  members  of  which  (except  the 
general)  were  imbued  with  perverse  ideas.  (His  mother  had 
been  arrested  and  kept  in  prison  for  ten  days  for  refusing  to 
reveal  the  name  of  the  owner  of  a  socialist  book  ;  his  sister 
was  in  prison,  and  is  now  in  Siberia.)  (2)  Because  it  was 
owing  to  his  influence  that  certain  leaders  against  the  Social- 
ists tcere  not  printed  in  the  Odessa  Listoh  after  the  attempt 
of  April  2nd  ! 

Mr.  Kovalevsky,  an  officer  of  the  Odessa  municipality, 
was  exiled  to  Eastern  Siberia  because  (1)  he  was  his  wife's 
husband.  (Madame  Kovalevsky,  while  living  at  Kieff,  away 
from  her  husband,  became  implicated  in  the  Terrorist  doings 
there,  and  was  sentenced  in  May,  1879,  to  a  term  of  hard 
labor.)     (2)  Because  he  had  been  heard  to  say,  in  the  pres- 


INKOCENT  THEEEFORE  PUK"ISnED.  185 

ence  of  some  of  kis  fellow-officers  of  the  municipality,  that 
he  had  no  very  high  opinion  of  the  Government ;  and  (3) 
because  he  exercised  a  bad  influence  over  his  friends. 

The  case  of  Mr.  Belousoff,  professor  in  one  of  the  colleges 
at  Kielf,  is  still  richer.  He  v/as  arrested  in  the  summer  of 
1879,  dismissed  from  his  post  and  exiled  to  the  north,  all 
owing  to  a  pure  "  misunderstanding,"  as  they  say  in  Eussia, 
on  the  part  of  the  police,  and  pure  misfortune  on  his  ;  the 
head  and  front  of  the  poor  man's  offending  being  the  name 
he  bore — the  name  of  Belousoff.  So  did  somebody  else  with 
whom  the  police  confounded  him.  Five  years  previously 
this  somebody  else  had  been  accused,  or  suspected,  of 
carrying  on  a  propaganda  among  the  workmen  of  Kieff, 
but  succeeded  in  escaping.  Thus  Mr.  Belousoff  was  made 
to  suffer  for  the  sins  of  a  namesake  whom  he  neither  knew 
nor  had  ever  seen.  Already,  in  1874,  he  had  been  brought 
before  the  police  under  a  similar  misapprehension,  and  the 
error  being  explained,  dismissed — presumably,  "without  a 
stain  on  his  character."  In  1879,  howeyer,  he  was  less  for- 
tunate, for  this  time  the  police  (who  had  doubtless  on  over- 
hauling their  records  found  his  name  thereon)  condemned 
him  to  an  indefinite  term  of  administratire  exile. 

It  may  be  remarked,  by  way  of  parenthesis,  that  this  sort 
of  quid  pro  quo  is  far  from  being  uncommon  in  Eussia.  At 
Kharkoff  a  student  named  Semenovsky  was  arrested  for  no 
other  reason  than  that,  three  years  before,  an  advocate,  sim- 
ilarly named,  had  been  tried  and  convicted  of  propagandism. 
At  Odessa,  again,  the  police  wanted  a  certain  Mr.  Kohan ; 
but  there  being  ''two  Eichmonds  in  the  field,"  they  hesitated 
at  first  which  to  take,  but  got  over  the  difficulty  by  arrest- 
ing both. 

But  let  us  continue  Mr.  Belousoff's  story.  When  the 
mistake  was  explained  to  General  Tchertkoff,  Governor  of 
Kieff,  and  he  was  requested  to  revoke  the  sentence  passed  on 
an  admittedly  innocent  and  therefore  deeply  wronged  man, 


186  EUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZAES. 

he  answered  in  these  words ;  "  I  quite  believe  that  what  you 
say  is  quite  true  ;  but  in  a  time  of  trouble  like  the  present, 
the  administration  cannot  afford  to  make  mistakes.  So  let 
him  go  into  exile,  and  in  a  little  while  he  may  petition  me 
for  a  revocation  !  " 

Another  example  in  conclusion.  Mr.  Isidor  Goldsmith 
was  for  eight  years  editor  of  two  high-class  monthly  reviews. 
When,  in  1879,  the  rigors  of  the  censorship  obliged  him  to 
abandon  the  career  of  letters,  he  betook  himself  to  Moscow,  of 
which  city  his  Vfiie  (a  member  of  the  well-known  and  highly 
popular  Androusoff  family)  was  a  native,  and  began  prac- 
tice at  the  bar.  But  an  untov/ard,  yet  all  too  common,  in- 
cident thwarted  his  plans,  and  involved  himself  and  his 
"Wife  in  interminable  trouble.  They  were  denounced  by  a 
spy,  who  accused  them  to  the  police  of  having  come  to 
Moscow  for  nothing  else  than  to  organize  a  central  revolu- 
tionary committee.  Search  and  arrest  followed  as  a  matter 
of  course,  and,  equally  of  course,  nothing  whatever  was  found 
to  justify  the  statement  of  the  spy  and  the  action  of  the 
police.  All  the  same,  a  formal  inquisition  was  opened,  and 
in  ordinary  circumstances  the  accused  would  have  been  kept 
in  prison  during  the  six  months  over  which  an  examination 
generally  extends.  But  having  friends  in  high  quarters  and 
the  absurdity  of  the  charge  against  them  being  self-evident, 
the  Governor-General  of  i\Ioscow,  Prince  Dolgorouk}^  was 
prevailed  upon  to  interest  himself  in  their  favor.  The  con- 
sequence was  that,  instead  of  being  locked  up  in  gaol,  they 
were  placed  under  domiciliary  arrest  in  their  own  house. 
But  on  September  24th  they  were  arrested  a  second  time, 
and  without  more  ado  sent  under  escort  to  Archangelsk,  on 
the  shores  of  the  White  Sea,  the  chief  town  of  the  province 
of  that  name.  After  a  stay  there  of  two  months,  they  were 
transferred  to  the  little  town  of  Kholonogory  in  the  same 
district.  Before  being  conveyed  to  their  new  destination, 
Mr.  Goldsmith  had  the  good  fortune  to  get  sight  of  the  doc- 


INNOCE:srT  THEREFORE   PUNISHED.  187 

nmenfc  in  which  the  gi'ounds  of  the  action  taken  against 
himself  and  his  wife  were  set  forth.     It  ran  as  follows  : 

"  The  gendamerie  department  of  Moscow  accused  Mr.  Isidor  Gold- 
smith and  his  wife  Sopliia  of  having  come  to  Moscow  intent  on  found- 
ing a  central  revolutionary  committee.  After  a  minute  domiciliary 
search  and  an  examination  for  the  discovery  of  proofs,  the  charges 
brought  against  the  before-mentioned  persons  were  found  to  bo  quite 
without  justification.  Consequently  the  Minister  of  the  Interior  and 
the  chief  of  the  gendarmerie  decree  that  Isidor  Goldsmith  and  Sophia 
his  wife  be  transported  to  Archangelsk,  and  there  placed  under  the 
supervision  of  the  local  police." 

Could  logic  more  exquisite  be  imagined  ?  These  people 
are  innocent,  therefore  let  them  be  punished,  a  result  so 
incredibly  and  grotesquely  absurd  that  the  uninitiated  may 
well  be  excused  for  preferring  to  ascribe  it  rather  to  an  error 
of  transcription  than  to  deliberate  intention.  But  the 
reader,  who  is  beginning  to  understand  the  spirit  which 
animates  the  Tzar's  bureaucracy,  and  has  had  time  to  famil- 
iarize himself  with  the  manners  and  customs  of  official 
Russia,  will  find  no  difficulty  in  filling  up  the  hiatus  which 
eeems  to  disconnect  the  syllogism  from  the  conclusion  in 
this  remarkable  and,  unfortunately,  by  no  means  exceptional 
document. 

The  charge  being  false,  says,  in  effect,  the  Third  Section, 
there  can  be  no  ground  for  a  formal  prosecution.  But  as 
people  who  have  once  been  accused  are  always  looked  upon 
with  sus^Dicion,  this  gentleman  and  his  wife,  in  accordance 
with  the  usual  custom  in  such  cases,  must  be  sent  into  exile. 

And  I  repeat  it,  the  cases  I  haye  adduced  are  neither  ex- 
ceptional nor  extreme.  The  yictims  whose  experiences  we 
have  narrated  were  able  to  ascertain,  directly  or  indirectly, 
the  causes  to  which  their  exile  was  ostensibly  due.  In  every 
instance  the  cause  was  political.  But  there  is  ample  room 
for  the  play  of  other  and  even  more  darker  causes  ;  the 
methods  of  the  police  especially  binding  themselves  to  the 


18S  EUSSIA  Ul^DER  THE  TZARS. 

gratification  of  private  malice  and  personal  reyenge.  For 
they  not  only  protect  and  support  their  own  creatures — spies 
by  profession — but  do  all  in  their  power  to  encourage  the 
spontaneous  denunciations  of  amateur  informers.  An  ac- 
cused person  is  never,  in  any  circumstances,  allowed  to  know 
the  name  of  his  accuser,  and  the  charge  is  always  so  worded 
as  to  throw  you  off  the  scent,  and  jjrevent  you,  as  far  as  pos- 
sible, from  guessing  the  name  of  your  secret  enemy.  For 
instance,  the  police  will  jirotest  that  they  are  in  possession 
of  evidence  showing  that  you  have  distributed  revolutionary 
proclamations  ;  but  where,  when,  or  in  what  circumstances, 
they  will  no  more  tell  you  than  they  will  divulge  the  name 
of  their  informant.  It  is,  moreover,  a  positive  fact  that  a 
great  many  persons  ordered  into  exile  are  neither  told  the 
reason  why,  nor  informed  what  they  have  done  amiss.  A 
few  years  later,  perhaj)s,  they  may  learn,  by  some  indirect 
means,  that  they  owe  their  ruin  to  a  rogue  whom  they  had 
threatened  with  prosecution,  or  cliantagist  (I  use  the  French 
word  because  there  is  no  English  equivalent)  to  whom  they 
had  refused  black-mail.  As  I  have  already  had  occasion  to 
mention,  the  Eevising  Commission  appointed  by  Loris 
Mclikoff  discovered  so  many  cases  of  exile  arising  from  false 
evidence,  that  the  Government  itself  was  seized  with  horror. 
So  at  least  the  censured  Journals  of  the  day  emphatically 
affirmed.  That  the  number  of  these  cases  was  somethino^ 
enormous  we  can  well  believe.  Under  the  existing:  system 
it  would  be  surprising  if  they  were  not.  But  it  may  be  per- 
mitted to  doubt  the  sincerity  of  the  horror  ascribed  to  the 
Government.  In  any  event  it  did  not  last  long,  and  was 
speedily  forgotten  in  the  greater  horror  inspired  by  the 
dread  spectre  of  revolution.  For  the  system  flourishes  in 
full  vigor  even  now,  and  in  every  city  of  the  empire  the 
best,  the  bravest,  and  the  ablest  continue  to  be  torn  from 
work  profitable  to  themselves  and  useful  to  the  country,  and 
sent  into  hopeless  exile. 


INXOCENT  TnEREFORE   PUKISHED.  189 

But  v/liat,  it  may  be  asked,  is  this  administrative  exile  ? 
We  know  that  in  ordinary  parlance  it  means  simple  deporta- 
tion, and  that  a  man  sent  to  a  far  country  may  possibly  gain 
by  the  exchange.  We  know,  too,  what  the  supervision  ex- 
ercised by  the  police  of  continental  countries  over  common 
criminals  whose  offences  are  considered  not  to  have  been 
sufficiently  expiated  by  their  previous  jranishment  is  like — 
an  onerous  and  vexatious  system  that  tends  only  to  increase 
crime,  and  is  strongly  disapproved  by  the  best  authorities  of 
the  countries  in  which  it  prevails.  But  the  Eussian  system 
of  political  exile  is  altogether  sui  generis.  The  joerson  exiled 
is  much  more  than  a  political  malefactor.  The  crime  he  is 
credited  with  a  desire  to  commit  is  speech — the  utterance  of 
words.  Worse  than  a  malefactor,  he  is  a  centre  of  contagion. 
Because,  when  you  come  near  a  man  he  talks — and  if  his 
disposition  be  perverse  and  his  political  views  unsound,  he 
M-ill  inevitably  poison  with  his  venom  all  with  whom  he 
comes  in  contact — if  you  let  him.  Hence  he  must  be  isolated, 
even  in  the  place  of  his  exile.  Nor  is  this  all.  A  man  of 
culture  can  infect  even  at  a  distance.  By  means  of  letters 
and  the  press  he  may  corrupt  people  Vvdiom  he  never  sees. 
It  is  therefore  imperative  to  cut  him  off  from  the  entire 
world. 

And  this  is  the  principle  acted  upon,  as  the  following  ex- 
tracts ( textn.ally  rendered)  from  the  Regulations  for  Ad- 
ministrative Exiles  (  March  12-25  )  will  show  : 

"  To  exiles  is  forbidden  : — Every  sort  of  pedagogic  occu- 
pation, such  as  the  teaching  of  arts  and  trades,  the  reading 
(  or  giving)  of  public  lectures,  participation  in  the  proceed- 
ings of  scientific  societies,  and  all  public  activity  whatso- 
ever !" 

They  are  forbidden  further  to  act  as  "  typographers,  lith- 
ographers, photographers,  or  librarians,  or  to  serve  in  any 
such  establishments  as  agents,  clerks,  overlookers,  or  simple 
workmen."     The  vending  of  books,  or  other  printed  matter 


100  EUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZAES. 

or  product   of  the   press,  is  likewise  forbidden  to  exiles 
( p:iragrai3li  24 ). 

All  other  employments  (?)  not  forbidden  by  the  law  (  say, 
manual  labor,  for  which  the  average  political  exile  is  little 
apt )  are  open  to  exiles,  with  the  reservation,  however,  that 
the  local  governor  may  veto  the  occupation  selected  in  the 
event  of  the  exile  using  it  for  the  carrying  out  of  perverse 
intentions,  or  if,  owing  to  special  circumstances,  it  is  likely 
to  endanger  order  or  disturb  the  public  tranquillity  (para- 
graph 28  ). 

By  paragraph  21  it  is  forbidden  to  em.ploy  exiles  in  govern- 
ment offices  or  local  public  establishments,  except  as  copyists, 
and  by  special  permission  of  the  Minister  of  the  Interior. 
Paragraph  27  lays  an  interdict  on  medical  or  pharmaceuti- 
cal practice  by  exiles,  except,  as  in  the  former  case,  by  special 
permission  of  the  Minister.  But  as  such  permission  is  as 
hard  to  obtain  as  a  revocation  of  the  decree  of  exile,  thein- 
terdict  is  practically  absolute. 

As  the  Government  deprives  exiles  of  almost  every  possible 
way  of  gaining  a  livelihood,  it  is  only  just  that  it  should 
keep  them.  And  this  it  does— after  a  fashion.  In  the  central 
provinces  they  are  allowed  the  pittance  of  six  roubles  (  about 
eighteen  shillings )  a  month  ;  in  the  northern  jn-ovinces, 
where  life  is  more  costly,  the  allowance  is  eight  roubles— 
in  both  cases  for  exiles  of  the  nobility.  Members  of  the  non- 
privileged  classes  receive  exactly  half  this  sum,  and,  as  may 
be  supposed,  it  is  almost  more  than  any  of  them  can  do  to 
keep  body  and  soul  together. 

And  then  comes  paragraph  37,  which  reads  like  the  bit- 
terest irony  :  "  Exiles  who  shirk  work,  either  from  idleness, 
bad  conduct,  or  lazy  habits,  will  be  deprived  of  their  gov- 
ernmental stipend  !  " 

Finally,  we  have  paragraph  29,  which  is,  perhaps,  the 
cream  of  the  collection.     It  runs  thus  : 

"  The  Minister  of  the  Interior  is  empowered  to  forbid  to 


IKKOCEXT  THEKEFOKE   PUNISHED.  191 

any  exile  the  direct  delivery  of  his  letters  and  despatches 
which,  in  that  event,  are  to  be  handed  by  the  post  otBce  to 
the  chief  of  the  local  police  or  tlie  gendarmes.  These  latter, 
after  reading  them,  may  give  them  to  the  exile,  if  they  find 
nothing  prejudicial  therein.  In  the  contrary  case,  the  con- 
fiscated correspondence  must  be  immediately  forwarded  to 
the  gendarmerie.  In  the  same  way  all  letters  or  dispatches 
which  the  exile  proposes  to  send  away  must  be  first  read  by 
the  aforementioned  authorities." 

Practically,  as  we  have  good  reasons  to  know,  these  rules 
are  applied  in  the  inyei'se  sense — all  our  exile's  correspond- 
ence is  submitted  to  the  censorship  of  the  local  police.  The 
contrary  is  the  exception. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  jiicture  to  ourselves  what  life  must  be 
like  under  conditions  such  as  these.  But  as  an  illustration, 
and  by  way  of  facilitating  the  process,  I  will,  with  the 
reader's  permission,  tell  the  story  of  a  company  of  my  exiled 
friends.  Those  who  prefer  to  trust  to  their  own  unaided 
imaginations  are,  of  course,  at  liberty  to  skip  the  following 
chapter.  Let  us,  then,  abandoning  laws,  regulations,  and 
paragraphs,  deal  for  a  moment  with  creatures  of  flesh  and 
blood,  and  study  a  deeply  interesting  but  little  known  phase 
of  human  life. 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

LIFE   IN  EXILE. 


On"  an  early  June  day,  in  the  year  18T9,  all  the  exiles  of 
Gorodishko,  a  wretched  little  town  on  the  northern  coast,  are 
gathered  near  the  landing-place.  They  number  about 
thirty,  and  are  of  all  sorts  and  conditions — young  and  old, 
vigorous  and  decrepit,  some  dressed  like  gentlemen,  others 
like  peasants,  some  in  paletots,  others  in  smock  frocks, 
plaids,  and  jackets — pacing  to  and  fro,  leaning  against  the 
piles,  sitting  on  bales  of  merchandise,  standing  in  little 
o-roups  and  talking  vvatli  the  absent  manner  of  men  who  are 
thinking  of  something  else.  From  time  to  time  they  turn 
curious  and  eager  eyes  toward  the  upper  reaches  of  the  river. 
For  it  is  thence  will  come  the  steamer,  whose  arrival  all  are 
waiting. 

There  have  been  serious  troubles  in  a  university  town  of 
Southern  Russia.  Beginning  in  the  university  itself,  and 
arising,  as  usual,  out  of  a  misunderstanding  with  one  of  the 
professors,  the  disturbance  speedily  involved  the  entire  city. 
A  hundred  of  the  students  were  expelled,  and  most  of  them 
—as  also  some  others  who,  although  they  had  been  arrested,  it 
was  not  considered  expedient  to  keep  in  prison— were  imme- 
diately ordered  into  exile.  According  to  the  accepted  usage 
in  such  cases  they  were  divided  into  little  groups,  the  lead- 
ers being  sent  to  a  dozen  different  places  in  Siberia,  the  less 
compromised  to  the  northern  littoral.  One  of  these  groups 
was  coming  to  Gorodishko— an  event  on  which  our  exiles 
were  warmly  felicitating  each  other.  It  w&s  not,  perhaps, 
very  much  to  their  credit  to  rejoice  over  the  misfortunes  of 


LIFE  IN"  EXILE.  I'-'S 

others,  and  the  addition  of  six  persons  to  thirty  who  were 
dying  of  ennui  did  not  promise  to  be  much  of  a  distraction. 
But  the  lives  of  these  thirty  were  so  terribly  dull  that  any 
event,  however  trifling,  was  regarded  as  a  blessing.  And 
the  new  arrivals  came  from  without— ''from  liberty,'' as 
runs  the  mocking  phrase,  which  sounds  strangely  from  Rus- 
sian lips.  They  bring  with  them  a  ripple  of  new  life,  as  a 
prison  door,  opening  for  a  moment,  lets  in  a  breath  of  fresh 
air  !  So  the  exiles  were  gay,  and  prepared  to  give  their  new 
confreres  a  warm  welcome. 

They  had  long  to  wait,  for  the  poor  fellows  in  their  eager- 
ness had  assembled  on  the  wharf  two  hours  before  the  time 
fixed  for  the  steamer's  arrival,  and,  as  is  generally  the  case 
in  Eussia,  she  was  behind  her  time.  But  patience  had  be- 
come a  habit  with  these  involuntary  waiters  on  Providence, 
and  it  never  occurred  to  them  to  murmur. 

A  young  man  from  Odessa  of  the  name  of  Ursitch,  re- 
cently exiled  for  taking  part  in  a  "  demonstration,"  had 
stationed  himself,  binocular  in  hand,  on  the  top  of  a  pile  of 
wood.  Every  now  and  then  those  near  him  inquired  if  he 
could  "see  anything." 

At  length,  towards  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  he  ut- 
tered the  long-expected  cry — "The  steamer."  And  far 
away  on  the  horizon  could  be  seen  a  faint  black  line,  sur- 
mounted by  a  thin  gray  column.  A  boat  beyond  question. 
But  so  small  that  a  doubt  arises  whether  it  is  the  boat.  May 
it  not  be  some  merchant  steamer  ?  The  binocular  is  passed 
from  hand  to  hand.  Everybody  stares  with  all  his  might 
into  the  double  tube,  but  none  can  decide.  The  glass  does 
not  carry  far  enough. 

"Uskimbai  the  sultan  !"  shouts  one  of  the  exiles,  "get 
up  there  quickly  on  the  pile." 

As  if  in  answer  to  the  summons  a  strange  figure  comes 
pushing  through  the  crowd — large  and  solid — clad  in  a  long 
gray  capot,  with  a  deep,  yellow,  hairless  face,  little  Mongol 
9 


19J:  KUSSIA    UKDER   THE   TZARS. 

eyes,  a  big  flat  nose,  and  a  square  neck,  the  latter  covered 
with  short  black  hair  as  crisp  and  bunchy  as  a  horse's  mane. 

This  was  Uskimbai  the  sultan — a  veritable  sultau,  not 
merely  so  dubbed  iu  sport  or  derision.  For  all  the  chiefs  of 
the  Nomad  Kirgliis  tribes  under  Eussian  domination  bear 
this  high-sounding  designation.  It  is  recognized  by  the 
Eussian  authorities,  and  after  some  dozen  years'  service  these 
wandering  sultans  receive  the  commission  of  third  lieutenant 
in  the  army  of  the  Tzar.  But  instead  of  the  insignificant 
epaulettes  usually  worn  by  ofl&cers  of  this  rank,  they  are 
allowed  to  don  the  epaulettes  of  a  major,  the  long  tassels  of 
which,  when  attached  to  the  khalate — the  sort  of  dressinar- 
gown  which  constitutes  their  sole  costume — have  a  remark- 
ably brilliant  effect.  But  Allah  had  not  decreed  that 
Uskimbai  should  receive  this  coveted  mark  of  distinction. 
One  night  when  he  and  some  men  of  his  tribe  were  quietly 
driving  off  a  flock  of  sheep  belonging  to  the  garrison  of  a 
Eussian  post,  they  were  caught  by  some  Cossacks  in  fia- 
grante  delicto.  The  sultan,  who  fell  into  their  hands,  was 
taken  in  bonds  to  the  nearest  town,  and  exiled  by  adminis- 
trative order  to  the  northern  provinces. 

He  moved  with  the  rolling  gait  peculiar  to  men  who  have 
passed  much  of  their  lives  at  sea  or  on  horseback. 

"  Get  up  and  tell  us  what  thou  seest,  sultan,"  said  the 
owner  of  the  binocular. 

Uskimbai  gave  an  affirmative  nod,  and  did  as  he  was 
asked,  lie  knew  they  could  not  do  without  him  ;  a  large 
smile  broke  his  great  beardless  face  in  halves,  exposing  un- 
der the  yellow  skin  two  splendid  rows  of  strong  white  teeth. 

Pushing  scornfully  aside  the  glass  tendered  to  him  by 
Ursitch,  and  turning  his  eyes,  or  rather  the  two  narrow  slits 
in  which  a  pair  of  brilliantly  black  cockchafers  seemed  to 
be  hidden,  towards  the  horizon,  he  declared,  after  a 
moment's  earnest  gaze,  that  the  boat  was  tlie  steamer.  He 
said  further  that  he  could  see  three  men  on  the  bridge,  one 


LIFE  IN"   EXILE.  195 

of  whom  wore  a  white  hat,  and  was  looking  into  a  machine 
like  that  they  had  just  offered  him. 

This  seemed  rather  too  much,  and  the  declaration  of 
the  Kirghis  chief  Avas  greeted  with  a  shout  of  incredulous 
laughter,  Avhich  evidently  annoyed  him. 

"  Thou  Kussian  sees  nothing  ;  Kirghis  sees  everything. 
Thou'rt  blind  fowl,"'  exclaimed  the  child  of  nature  from  his 
"coign  of  vantage  "  to  the  crowd  below— ''thouing  "  in  the 
fashion  of  his  country,  whose  language  admits  of  their 
using  "thou  "  in  the  plural. 

This  sally  was  received  with  great  good  humor,  and  the 
sultan,  descending  from  the  timber  with  a  dignified  air, 
took  a  seat,  singing  the  while  a  'Kirghis  song  of  triumjih 
composed  of  only  tv;o  notes,  which  he  repeated  continually 
in  a  slow  and  monotonous  measure  as  if  it  were  a  funeral 
dirge. 

Uskimbai's  eyes  had  not  deceived  him,  as  fifteen  minutes 
later  everybody,  with  the  help  of  the  binocular,  were  able  to 
see.  The  steamer  was  the  steamer,  and  on  the  bridge  stood 
the  three  men  exactly  as  the  sultan  had  described  them. 
They  were  shortly  afterwards  joined  by  two  others,  whose 
costumes  alone,  even  if  they  had  not  been  accompanied  by  a 
brace  of  gendarmes,  would  have  proclaimed  their  quality. 
When,  doubling  the  wood-covered  promontory  which  im- 
peded the  view,  the  steamer  appeared  in  her  majestic  grace 
rushing  with  her  black  prow  through  the  white  foaming 
water,  a  great  shout  went  up  from  the  landing-stage,  and 
the  exiles  made  tumultuously  for  the  gangway. 

The  passengers  came  ashore,  and  the  new  arrivals  found 
themselves  in  the  midst  of  a  noisy  exiled  crowd.  Greetings 
are  exchanged,  and  in  a  few  minutes  strangers  and  old 
stagers  have  made  each  other's  acquaintance,  and  are  on  the 
footing  of  familiar  friends.  Three  of  the  new-comers  arc 
students,  and  as  each  in  turn  mentions  the  cause  of  his  exile, 
the    old    stagers  learn   that    the  offence    of    their    young 


19G  EUSSIA  UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

comrades  "was  putting  their  names  to  a  petition.  The  other 
two  are  more  advanced  in  years,  and  evidently  not  students. 
The  first  introduced  himself  as  "  Podkova  Taras,  advocate 
— for  a  shirt." 

'TIow?  You  are  indeed  a  cheap  advocate  to  accept 
a  shirt  as  retainer,"  laughed  the  others. 

"  No,  no,  I  don't  mean  that.  I  mean  that  a  shirt  is  the 
cause  of  my  exile." 

In  this  answer  there  larked  a  touch  of  Ruthenian  humor, 
Podkova's  supposed  offence  being  Ukranian  separatism,  the 
evidence  against  him  being,  according  to  the  statement  of  an 
informer,  that  he  was  in  the  habit  of  wearing  the  national 
shirt  affected  by  the  peasantry  of  his  native  province. 

His  companion.  Dr.  Michel  Losinski,  a  professor  of  the 
healing  art,  was  less  fortunate.  He  had  not  been  able  to 
learn  the  cause  of  his  exile-. 

"It  was  perhaps  out  of  consideration  for  these  gentle- 
men," he  said,  smiling  and  pointing  to  his  companions, 
*'  the  police  did  not  think  it  right  to  let  them  make  so  long 
a  journey  without  their  own  physician." 

Tlie  introductions  over  and  the  formalities  in  the  police 
office  completed,  the  new  comers  were  led  by  their  new 
friends  to  one  of  the  large  communes,  where  a  modest — 
a  very  modest— meal  had  been  prepared  in  anticipation  of 
their  arrival.  It  consisted  of  fish,  seasoned  with  powdered 
horse-radish,  specially  brought  from  the  garden  of  a 
monastery,  six  miles  away,  the  sole  possessor  of  this  culinary 
treasure.  For  dessert  they  had  a  dish  of  carrots — in  that 
land  of  ice  a  rare  gastronomic  delicacy — the  whole  washed 
down  with  yellow  water,  dignified  with  the  name  of  tea, 
and  drawn  from  a  capacious  samovcn  which  seemed  to  con- 
tain an  inexhaustible  supply. 

Conversation,  the  chief  burden  of  it  being  naturally  homo 
by  the  new  comers,  was  kept  up  during  the  repast  with 
great  animation.     The  doctor  was  in  vein.     With  character- 


LIFE  IK   EXILE.  197 

isfcic  Polish  spirit  (though  born  on  the  left  bank  of  the 
Dnieper,  and  therefore  ''Eussiimized,"  he  was  a  Pole  by 
origin)  be  described  the  more  comic  incidents  of  his  exami- 
nation and  prelimiuar}'  detention,  and  told  several  racy  anec- 
dotes about  the  gendarmes  of  K and  their  proceedings 

generally.  Orsbine,  one  of  tbe  students,  Avas  called  upon 
for  a  history  of  the  troubles  in  which  they  had  been  impli- 
cated. Podkova  spoke  little.  He  had  been  a  rising  lawyer, 
of  great  ability  and  promise ;  but  in  the  society  of  strangers 
his  manner  was  timid  and  constrained.  Orsbine,  wbo  bad 
made  his  acquaintance  on  the  way,  and  was  becoming 
warmly  attached  to  him,  said  that  Podkova  after  one  of  his 
speeches  reminded  him  of  a  discbarged  electric  needle. 

Tbe  exiles  did  not  separate  until  late  in  tbe  evening. 
But  as  the  new  comers  had  neither  told  all  their  news,  nor 
exhausted  their  stock  of  suppositions,  opinions,  and  con- 
jectures, the  divers  communes,  great  and  small,  took 
possession  of  them  as  if  they  had  been  prisoners  of  war, 
and  led  them  away.  The  distribution  was,  however, 
amicably  arranged,  and  every  commune  had  its  man. 

But  what  is  a  "  commune  "  in  this  sense  ?  the  reader  will 
ask. 

It  is  a  common  institution  of  Eussian  university  life.  In 
all  the  universities  and  superior  schools  a  great  part  of  the 
students  form  themselves  into  societies,  each  numbering 
from  eight  to  twelve  men,  who  hire  rooms,  make  a  common 
purse,  and  live  together  in  full  fraternity.  In  the  common 
purse  every  man  puts  all  that  he  receives  from  home  or  earns 
by  teaching,  without  thinking  or  knov/ing  whether  his  com- 
rades contributed  more  or  less  than  himself.  It  is  only  by 
means  of  this  system  that  so  many  poor  scholars  are  enabled 
to  study  at  the  capital,  and  maintain  themselves  on  their 
often  very  limited  resources.  But  useful  as  is  this  system  of 
mutual  help  to  Eussian  students,  to  Eussian  exiles  it  is  sim- 
ply a  matter  of  life  and  death.     For  without  this  sort  of 


198  RUSSIA  UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

brotherly  union  and  co-operation  hundreds  of  exiles  would 
every  year  perish  of  privation  and  want. 


* 
* 


If  the  Russian  Government  were  less  besotted  with  fear 
it  would  surely  let  the  unfortunate  suspects  live  in  peace 
whom  it  sends  to  eat  out  their  hearts  in  holes  like  Goro- 
dishko. 

Imagine  a  town  "of  about  1,000  inhabitants,"  occupying 
from  150  to  200  houses,  the  latter  in  two  rows  parallel  with 
the  river  and  forming  a  single  street.  The  spaces  between 
the  dwellings  serve  as  short  cuts  to  the  forest  and  the  river. 
All  the  buildings  are  of  wood— except  the  church,  which  is 
of  brick.  If  you  ascend  the  steeple  to  take  a  survey  of  the 
country,  you  see  on  every  side  dense  and  wide-stretching 
pine-forests,  broken  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  river  by  great 
clearings  covered  with  the  blackened  stumps  of  departed 
trees.  If  the  time  be  winter,  you  have  no  need  to  mount  so 
high ;  for  you  know  beforehand  that  you  will  see  only  an 
immense  ocean  of  snow,  whose  billowy  surface  is  oftener 
traversed  by  hungry  wolves  than  by  Esquimaux  sledges.  In 
that  inclement  climate  and  almost  polar  region  agriculture 
is  out  of  the  question.  Bread  is  imported  and  therefore 
dear.  The  few  inhabitants  occupy  themselves  with  fishing, 
hunting,  and  charcoal-burning.  The  forest  and  the  river 
are  the  sole  sources  of  their  existence.  Among  the  people 
of  Gorodishko  there  are  probably  no  m.ore  than  a  dozen  who 
can  read  and  write.  These  are  the  tchinovniks — Govern- 
ment employes — and  even  they  are  half  peasants.  Little 
time  is  given  to  bureaucratic  formalities  in  this  icy  desert ; 
and  if  you  should  happen  to  require  the  services  of  the  chief 
magistrate,  you  would  probably  be  told  that  he  was  away  on 
a  journey,  engaged  in  the  transport  of  merchandise,  for  the 
man  acts  as  a  common  carrier.  When  he  returns  in  two  or 
three  weeks  and  with  his  great  fat  fingers  signs  your  papers. 


LIFE  IN   EXILE.  199 

he  will  be  happy,  for  a  very  moderate  consideration,  to  driye 
you  to  your  destmation. 

The  intellectual  horizon  of  these  tchinovniks  is  not  much 
wider  than  that  of  their  peasant  neighbors.  No  man  of  ed- 
Ticatiou  and  capacity  could  be  persuaded  to  take  service  in 
so  remote  and  wretched  a  place.  They  are  either  creatures 
without  spirit  or  rogues  sent  thither  by  way  of  punishment; 
service  in  these  regions  being  a  sort  of  exile  for  the  tchinov- 
nil's  themselves.  And  if  among  the  latter  there  chance  to 
be  some  young  emj^loye  ambitious  of  promotion,  he  is  care- 
ful to  avoid  all  contact  with  the  exiles ;  for  to  be  friendly 
with  political  pariahs  would  of  a  surety  draw  upon  him  the 
suspicions  of  his  superiors,  and  probably  ruin  his  prospects 
for  life. 

* 
*  * 

For  ten  or  twelve  days  after  their  arrival  the  new  comers 
had  no  fixed  abode.  The  others  wanted  to  make  their  ac- 
quaintance thoroughly — to  know  them — and  they  wanted  to 
know  the  others.  So  they  lived  first  in  one  commune  and 
then  in  another,  changing  about  as  the  fancy  took  them. 
After  a  while  three  of  their  number — Losinski,  Taras,  and 
Orshine— together  Avith  Ursitch,  the  Odessa  man,  formed 
themselves  into  a  little  commune  of  their  own.  They  liired 
a  small  suite  of  rooms.  Each  member  of  the  society  acted 
in  turn  as  cook,  all  their  domestic  work  being,  of  course, 
done  by  themselves.  The  question  of  daily  bread — naturally 
the  first  which  presents  itself — was  their  greatest  difficulty. 
It  was  the  means,  too,  of  getting  Taras  into  bad  repute  with 
the  local  police.  The  exiles  brought,  as  they  thought, 
enough  money  to  last  them  until  they  should  receive  more. 
But  the  authorities  did  them  an  ill  turn — made  tbem  pay 
out  of  their  own  pockets  the  travelling  expenses  of  their  es- 
cort to  Gorodishko  !  And  all  their  cash  being  in  the  hands 
of  the  chief  gendarme,  they  were  powerless  to  resist   this 


200  KUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

curious  and  unexpected  exaction.  When  TJrsitch  heard  of 
the  incident,  he  tried  to  cousole  his  newly  made  friends  by 
telling  them  that  the  corps  of  cadets  of  which  he  had  been 
a  member  were  treated  even  worse.  At  the  termination  of 
the  course,  every  graduate  was  made  to  contribute  twenty- 
five  roubles  toward  the  expense  of  the  canes  consumed  dur- 
ing their  pupilage.  But  this  anecdote,  amusing  though  it 
was,  did  not  seem  to  reconcile  the  victims  to  their  loss.  As 
for  Taras,  he  was  furious,  swearing  roundly  that  if  he  had 
known  what  the  gendarmes  were  going  to  do,  he  would  have 
thrown  all  his  money  into  the  sea  rather  than  let  them 
have  it. 

All  were  in  great  straits.  Some  even  had  not  a  sufiBciency 
of  clothing.  People  are  arrested  wherever  they  may  hap- 
pen to  be — as  likely  as  not  in  the  street — thrown  into  prison, 
and  in  some  instances  sent  away  without  being  allowed  time 
either  to  make  provision  for  their  journey  or  say  farewell  to 
their  friends.  This  had  happened  to  Taras.  His  fellow 
exiles  placed  their  wardrobes  at  his  disposal,  but  he  refused 
to  profit  by  their  kindness. 

**  You  have  need  of  all  these  things  for  yourselves,"  he 
said.  "  The  Government  has  brought  me  here  by  force, 
and  deprived  me  of  my  means  of  living,  and  the  Govern- 
ment must  feed  and  clothe  me — I  will  snare  it  nothing." 

Not  a  day  passed  that  he  not  go  to  the  office  to  ask  for  his 
eight  roubles,  always  receiving  the  same  stereotyped  reply. 
The  local  autliorities  had  written  to  headquarters,  but  the 
necessary  authorization  had  not  yet  arrived.  He  must  have 
patience.  Nothing  that  he  said  or  did  seemed  to  produce 
any  impression,  and  his  companions  asked  him  to  desist 
from  his  labor  in  vain.  He  need  not  expect  anything  for 
several  months  to  come,  and  to  bother  the  officials  would 
only  set  them  against  him. 

"  They  shall  pay  me  that  money,"  was  tlie  only  answer 
Taras  vouchsafed  to  their  kindly  meant  counsel. 


LIFE   IN   EXILE.  201 

One  fine  afternoon,  when  the  other  exiles  were  going  out 
for  their  usual  walk,  Taras  went  out  also,  but  so  strangely 
dressed  that  all  the  children  ran  after  him,  and  the  place 
was  quite  in  a  commotion.  He  had  nothing  on  but  his 
night  clothes,  and  a  counterpane.  Before  he  had  marched 
up  and  down  the  single  street  half  a  dozen  times,  the  isprav- 
nih  (to  whom  somebody  had  hurried  with  the  news)  ap- 
peared on  the  scene  in  a  state  of  great  excitement. 

"Mr.  Podkova,  what  on  earth  are  you  doing  ?"  he  said, 
in  a  tone  of  admonition.  "Just  think  !  an  educated  man 
like  you  making  a  public  scandal.  The  ladies  can  see  you 
from  the  windows  !  " 

"  That  is  not  ray  fault.  I  have  no  clothes,  and  I  cannot 
remain  for  ever  within  the  four  walls  of  my  room.  It  might 
injure  my  health.     I  must  take  a  walk  occasionally." 

And  for  a  whole  week  he  promenaded  every  day  in  pre- 
cisely the  same  guise,  paying  no  heed  whatever  to  the 
ispravniFs  remonstrances,  until  by  his  persistency  he  fairly 
vanquished  ofiicial  inertness  and  got  his  wretched  stipendium. 
But  from  that  moment  he  was  looked  upon  as  a  "turbulent 


man." 


* 


The  short  summer,  which  in  that  far  northern  region  lasts 
but  two  months,  passed  only  too  quickly.  Autumn  came 
and  went  almost  unperceived,  and  then  the  long  polar  win- 
ter, with  its  interminable  nights,  reigned  over  the  land. 
The  sun,  after  showing  himself  for  a  brief  space  on  the 
southern  extremity  of  the  horizon  as  a  small  arch  of  a  few 
degrees  of  amplitude,  went  down  into  the  long  line  of  snow, 
leaving  the  earth  in  a  night  of  twenty  hours  dimly  lighted 
by  the  faint  and  distant  reflections  of  the  aurora  borealis. 

At  this  time,  as  may  be  supposed,  the  exiles  of  Gorodishko 
did  not  find  life  very  amusing.  Enforced  idleness  amid  an 
environment  destitute  of  everything  that  can  fix  the  atten- 
9* 


202  EUSSIA  UNDER  THE   TZAES. 

tion  of  a  civilized  man,  must  of  necessity  deaden  the  facul- 
ties and  stupefy  the  mind.  In  summer  it  is  not  quite  so  bad. 
There  are  berries  and  mushrooms  to  be  gathered  in  the  neigh- 
boring woods,  the  authorities  being  good  enough  to  wink  at 
the  slight  infractions  of  the  regulations  which  forbid  exiles 
to  put  a  foot  outside  the  boundaries  of  the  town.  A  man  can 
read,  too ;  a  resource  which  in  winter  is  far  from  being 
always  available.  Candles  being  expensive  and  exiles  poor, 
they  can  afford  only  rush-lights  made  of  fishes'  fat,  or  the 
loutchina,  a  splinter  of  resinous  wood,  whose  flickering  and 
uncertain  light  ruins  the  eyesight  of  those  who  use  it  for 
reading.  For  these  unfortunates  the  winter,  which  lasts 
three  quarters  of  the  year,  is  a  period  of  misery  and  inaction, 
a  season  accursed.  The  only  way  in  which  they  can  kill 
time  is  by  exchanging  visits  a,mong  themselves — in  the  cir- 
cumstances, however,  a  poor  and  altogether  insufficient  dis- 
traction. True,  they  are  like  a  family.  They  would  divide 
with  each  other  their  last  cmst  of  bread.  But  always  the 
same  faces,  always  the  same  talk,  always  the  same  subjects, 
their  lives  never  presenting  a  riew  feature — and  they  end  by 
having  nothing  to  say.  Men  drag  themselves  first  to  one 
house  and  then  to  another,  hoping  that  here  or  there  they 
will  find  something  less  stale,  flat,  and  unprofitable,  only  to 
go  away  disappointed,  and  repeat  the  experiment  elsewhere 
with  the  same  result.  And  this  goes  on  for  days,  weeks, 
months. 

One  winter  evening  a  company  of  exiles  were  gathered  as 
usual  around  the  samoven,  sipping  tea,  yawning  wearilv, 
and  staring  at  each  other  in  dull  silence.  Everything — faces, 
positions,  movements,  even  the  room  itself,  half  lighted  by 
a  single  candle  stuck  in  a  big  rustic  chandelier  of  wood — 
bespoke  the  very  extremity  of  weariness.  From  time  to 
time  somebody  half  unconsciously  lets  a  word  or  two  drop 
from  his  lips.  A  minute  or  two  afterwards,  when  the 
speaker  has  forgotten  what  he  said,  there  suddenly  comes 


LIFE   IX    EXILE.  203 

from  a  dark  corner  another  word  or  two,  which,  with  some 
effort,  the  listeners  understand  to  be  an  answer  to  the  prc- 
Yious  observation. 

Taras  does  not  speak  at  all.  Stretched  full  length  on  a 
bench  of  pine  Avood,  covered  with  dry  moss,  which  serves 
both  as  bed  and  sofa,  he  smokes  incessantly,  watching  with 
a  dreamy  air  the  little  blue  cloudlets  of  smoke  as  they  hover 
over  his  head  and  lose  themselves  in  the  gloom,  and  seems 
quite  satisfied  with  his  occupation  and  his  thoughts.  Losinski 
is  balancing  himself  on  a  chair  hard  by.  Whatever  might 
be  the  cause,  whether  worried  by  his  friend's  imperturbable 
phlegm,  or  rendered  nervous  by  the  electric  influence  of  the 
au.'ora  borealis,  he  is  evidently  more  than  usually  hipped 
and  uuhapi^y.  Though  the  evening  differed  in  nothing 
fi'om  other  evenings,  it  seemed  to  him  exceptionally  unsup- 
portable.     All  at  once  he  broke  out. 

"  Gentlemen  !"  he  exclaimed,  in  an  excited  and  energetic 
voice,  which,  by  its  contrast  with  the  languid  tone  most  in 
vogue,  awakes  immediate  attention.  ''  Gentlemen,  the  life 
we  lead  here  is  detestable!  If  we  live  on  in  this  idle,  pur- 
poseless "way  a  year  or  two  longer,  we  shall  become  incapable 
of  serious  work,  utterly  unnerved,  and  good  for  nothing  at 
all.  "We  must  bestir  ourselves,  we  must  do  something ;  if 
we  do  not,  we  shall  grow  so  weary  of  this  sordid,  vegetating 
existence,  that  we  may  be  tempted  to  drown  our  ennui  and 
seek  oblivion  in  the  degrading  bottle." 

At  these  words  the  blood  mounted  hotly  to  the  face  of  a 
man  who  sat  opposite  the  speaker.  They  called  him  Starik, 
**  the  old  one."  He  was  the  senior  member,  the  doyen  of 
the  colony,  alike  by  his  age  and  the  greatness  of  his  suffer- 
ings. He  had  been  a  journalist,  and  was  banished  m  1870 
for  some  articles  which  had  displeased  people  in  high  quar- 
ters. But  this  happened  so  long  ago  that  the  true  cause  of 
his  exile  had  in  all  probability  been  forgotten  even  by  himself. 
To  the  others  it  seemed  as  if  Starik  must  have  been  born  a 


204  RUSSIA   UXJDER  THE  TZAKS. 

political  exile.  Yet  he  lived  in  hope,  looking  always  for 
some  change  in  the  higher  splieres  that  might  bring  about  an 
order  for  his  liberation.  But  the  order  never  came,  and  when 
he  could  bear  the  suspense  no  longer  he  would  grow  utterly 
desperate,  and  drink  furiously  for  weeks,  so  that  his  friends 
were  forced  to  effect  a  provisional  cure  by  putting  him  under 
lock  and  key.  After  a  bout  of  this  sort  he  would  quiet 
down,  and  for  months  together  be  as  abstemious  as  an 
English  teetotaler. 

He  lowered  his  head  at  the  haphazard  allusion  made  by 
the  doctor,  who  continued  to  talk  in  the  same  strain.  Then 
a  shade  of  displeasure  passed  over  his  face  as  if  he  were 
vexed  at  being  ashamed,  and  looking  up  he  interrupted 
Losinski  bluntly  with  this  point  blank  question — 

"What  the  devil  would  you  have  us  do,  then?" 

For  a  moment  Losinski  was  disconcerted.  When  he  began 
his  remarks  he  had  nothing  in  his  mind  very  definite  or 
practical.  He  started  on  the  impulse  of  the  moment,  like  a 
spurred  horse.  But  his  confusion  endured  only  a  moment. 
An  emergency  with  him  never  failed  to  suggest  an  idea,  and 
the  very  next  instant  he  conceived  a  happy  thought. 

"  What  would  I  have  you  do  ! ''  he  repeated,  in  his  ordi- 
nary manner.  "  Why,  for  instance,  instead  of  sitting  stu- 
pidly here  catching  flies,  do  we  not  go  in  for  mutual  instruc- 
tion, or  something  of  that  sort  ?  There  are  thirty-five  of 
ns.  Every  one  knows  something  that  the  others  don't  know. 
Every  one  can  give  lessons  in  his  own  specialty  turn  about. 
That  will  occupy  the  listeners,  and  stimulate  the  lesson-giver." 

Here  was  at  least  something  practical,  and  a  discussion 
naturally  followed.  Starik  observed  that  the  sort  of  thing 
suggested  would  not  be  very  amusing  either,  and  that  they 
would  soon  be  more  ennuye  than  before.  There  were  of 
course yjros  and  cons,  and  the  speakers  grew  so  animated 
that  they  wasted  their  joowder,  several  talking  together,  and 
nobody  understanding  what  they  said.     It  was  a  long  time 


LIFE   IN"  EXILE.  205 

since  the  exiles  had  spent  so  agreeable  an  evening.  On  the 
evening  following  the  proposal  was  discussed  by  all  the  com- 
munes together,  and  accepted  with  enthusiasm.  A  study 
plan  was  drawn  uj),  and  a  week  later  Losinaki  opened  the 
course  with  a  brilliant  lecture  on  physiology. 

This  promising  enterprise  was,  however,  of  very  short 
duration.  The  whole  town  was  thrown  into  a  ferment  by 
the  news  of  a  proceeding  at  once  so  curious  and  so  unprece- 
dented. The  ispraimih  sent  for  Losinski,  and  gravely  in- 
formed him  that  his  lectures  were  in  contravention  of  the 
regulation  wdiich  expressly  forbids  exiles  to  engage  in  any 
sort  of  public  teaching. 

The  doctor  answered  with  a  laugh,  and  tried  to  make  the 
timid  tcliinovnik  understand  that  the  article  in  question  did 
not  apply  to  the  exiles  as  amongst  themselves.  So  long  as 
they  were  allowed  to  meet  and  converse  with  each  other,  it 
would  be  too  absurd  to  forbid  them  to  instruct  each  other. 
Though  the  point  did  not  seem  quite  clear  to  the  ispravnik, 
he  was  for  once  persuaded  to  listen  to  reason,  or  at  least  to 
act  as  if  he  did.  lie  had  fortunately  as  secretary  a  young 
fellow  who,  having  almost  completed  a  course  at  a  gymna- 
sium, was  regarded  by  the  people  of  Gorodishko  as  a  prodigy 
of  learning.  It  so  happened,  moreover,  that  the  youth, 
having  a  brother  in  the  "movement,"  w\as  a  secret  sympa- 
thizer with  the  exiles,  and  always  willing  to  do  them  a  good 
turn  whenever  it  lay  in  his  power.  He  had  already  ren- 
dered them  many  services  :  but  for  reasons  easily  understood 
they  seldom  appealed  to  him.  Such  help  as  he  gave  was 
generally  spontaneous.  It  was  he  who,  in  this  instance,  in- 
terceded on  their  behalf  and  decided  the  ispravnik,  after 
some  hesitation,  to  grant  their  request.  But  they  little  sus- 
pected that  adverse  influences  were  at  work,  and  that  danger 

threatened  the  project  from  another  quarter. 

* 

A  day  or  two  afterwards,  just  when  the  shadows  of  night 


206  RUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

were  beginning  to  descend  on  Gorodishko,  that  is  to  say, 
between  two  and  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  a  strange- 
looking  figure  walked  rapidly  down  its  single  street  towards 
a  little  gray  house  hard  by  the  church,  a  figure  covered  en- 
tirely wilh  hair.  The  lower  limbs  are  hidden  in  huge  and 
heavy  boots  of  double  fur — hairy  within  and  hairy  without 
— making  the  legs  look  like  the  forelegs  of  a  bear.  The 
body  is  enveloped  in  a  savoh,  a  sort  of  blouse  or  surplice, 
having  long  sleeves,  and  a  hood,  all  of  deerskin,  with  the 
hair  outwards.  The  hands  are  lost  in  enormous  roukavitsi, 
gloves  of  calf-skin — hoof-shaped  sacks  rather,  because  the 
hands  W'Ould  freeze  in  fingered  gloves  after  the  European 
fashion.  As  the  temperature  is  forty  degrees  (Centigrade) 
below  zero,  and  there  is  a  piercing  north  Avind,  the  hood  is 
lowered,  completely  hiding  the  face.  So  every  part  of  the 
body — head,  arms,  and  feet — is  covered  with  red-brown  hair, 
and  the  figure  is  more  like  a  wild  animal  v/hich  has  learnt 
to  walk  on  its  hind  legs  than  a  human  being.  If  it  were  to 
go  on  all  fours  the  illusion  would  be  complete.  But  as  the 
figure  is  that  of  one  of  the  most  elegant  in  Gorodishko's 
beauties  the  suggestion  is  perhaps  a  little  ungracious,  if  not 
positively  ungallant.  The  lady  is  none  other  than  tlie 
judge's  wife,  and  she  is  just  now  bent  on  paying  a  visit  to 
the  Popadia — the  wife  of  the  parson  of  the  parish. 

On  reaching  the  little  gray  house,  she  enters  the  court 
and  mounts  quickly  to  the  ante-chamber.  Here  she  throws 
back  her  hood,  showing  a  square  face  with  large  jaws,  and 
eyes  as  clear  and  blue  as  those  of  the  fish  of  the  country,  and 
shakes  herself  energetically  like  a  dog  fresh  out  of  the  water, 
to  get  rid  of  the  snow  which  has  fallen  on  her  furs.  Then 
she  enters  the  next  room  and  finds  the  Popadia  at  home, 
whereupon  the  visitor  takes  off  her  outer  garments,  and  the 
friends  embrace. 

"  Ilave  you  heard,  mother,  what  the  students  are  about  ?" 
says  the  judge's  wife,  excitedly. 


LIFE  IN  EXILE.  207 

In  the  far  nortli  political  exiles  are  called  "students"  in- 
discriminately, albeit  not  more  than  a  fourth  of  them  are 
so. 

"  Oh,  don't  mention  them  !  I  fear  so  much  that  they 
will  do  me  an  ill  turn,  that  every  time  I  pass  one  of  them 
in  the  street  I  make  a  sign  of  the  cross  under  my  savoh. 
Every  time,  I  assure  you.  It  is  that  alone  which  has  so  far 
kept  me  from  harm." 

"I  fear  now,  though,  it  will  protect  you  no  longer." 

"Oh,  the  very  Holy  Virgin!  What  do  you  mean  by 
that  ?     You  make  me  tremble  all  over.*' 

"Sit  down,  mother,  and  I  will  tell  you.  Matrcna,  the 
fish-wife,  came  to  see  me  half  an  hour  ago,  and  told  me  all 
about  it.  As  you  know,  she  lets  them  two  rooms,  and  she 
has  heard  something  through  the  key-hole.  She  did  not 
understand  everything — you  know  how  stupid  the  woman 
is — but  she  understood  enough  to  enable  us  to  guess  the 
rest." 

Whereupon  the  Judge's  wife,  with  many  exclamations,  in- 
terruptions, and  asides,  repeated  all  the  terrible  things  she 
had  heard  from  the  eaves-dropping  fish-wife— and  some- 
thing more. 

"The  students,  according  to  this  account,  had  conceived 
a  diabolical  project.  They  wanted  to  take  possession  of  the 
town  and  destroy  everything.  But  as  they  are  not  allowed 
to  do  this  they  are  angry.  The  doctor,  that  Pole,  you  know, 
is  the  ringleader;  and,  as  you  know,  a  Pole  is  capable  of 
anything.  He  had  the  others  in  his  room  yesterday,  and  he 
showed  them  things— such  things  !  And  he  told  them  things 
—such  things  !  It  would  make  the  very  hair  stand  on  your 
head  to  hear  them." 

"  Oh,  the  saints  of  paradise  !  Tell  me  quickly  or  I  shall 
die  of  fear  !  " 

"He  showed  them— a  skuU— a  dead  man's  skull ! " 

"Ah!  ah!" 


208  RUSSIA  UNDER  THE   TZARS. 

*' And  then  he  showed  them  a  book  full  of  red  pictures, 
dreadful  enough  to  dry  up  your  bowels.'* 

'^  Oh  !  oh  !  oh  ! " 

*'  But,  listen ;  there  is  something  still  more  terrible. 
After  showing  them  all  these  things,  after  speaking  words 
that  a  Christian  cannot  repeat,  the  Pole  said  this  :  '  In  seven 
days,'  he  said,  *wc  shall  have  another  lesson,  then  another, 
and  so  on  for  seven  times.  And  then,  after  the  seventh 
lesson ' " 

Here  the  speaker  raised  her  voice,  and  paused  for  a  mo- 
ment to  watch  the  effect  of  her  words. 

*'0h,  oh  !"  exclaimed  the  Fopadia,  "the  powers  of  the 
holy  cross  protect  us  ! " 

*'*  After  the  seventh  lesson,'  said  the  Pole,  *we  shall  be 
strong  and  powerful,  and  able  to  blow  up  the  city  with  all 
its  inhabitants  to  the  very  last  man.'" 

"  To  the  last  man— oh  ! " 

And  the  Fopadia  made  as  if  she  were  going  to  faint;  but, 
remembering  the  imminence  of  the  danger,  she  refrained. 

''And  the  ispravniJc,  what  does  he  say?" 

"  The  icS^rotvmX- is  an  ass ;  or,  perhaps,  he  has  been  won 
over  by  these  plotters — sold  himself  to  the  doctor." 

"  Do  you  know  vv'hat  we  must  do,  then,  mother  ?  We 
must  go  to  Mrs.  Captain.     Come  !" 

"  Yes,  that  is  it.     Let  us  go  to  Mrs.  Captain." 

Ten  minutes  later  the  two  friends  were  in  the  street,  both 
attired  in  the  same  grotesque  costume,  and  if  they  had  tum- 
bled about  among  the  snow  they  might  easily  have  been  mis- 
taken for  a  couple  of  frolicsome  young  bears.  But  they  were 
too  much  concerned  about  the  fate  of  their  native  town  to 
thmk  of  amusing  themselves  in  this  or  in  any  other  fash- 
ion. They  hurried  on  to  their  friend  to  pour  into  her  sym- 
pathetic ear  tlie  story  of  Matrena,  the  fish-wife,  a  story,  we 
may  be  sure,  not  likely  to  lose  anytliing  in  the  telling. 

'''  Mrs.  Captain  "  was  the  wife  of  the  captain  of  gendar- 


LIFE  IIT  EXILE.  209 

merie,  who  had  been  a  resident  at  Gorodishko  for  several 
years.  So  long  as  the  exiles  were  few  the  ispravnik  had  been 
in  sole  charge.  But  when  the  number  rose  to  twenty  and 
went  on  increasing,  it  was  thought  necessary  to  provide  him 
with  a  colleague  in  the  person  of  a  captain  of  gendarmerie. 
The  exiles  were  thus  placed  under  the  sujjervision  of  two 
rival  authorities  who  were  always  on  the  watch  to  trip  each 
other  up,  and,  by  a  great  show  of  zeal,  ingratiate  them- 
selves with  their  superiors  at  the  expense,  it  need  hardly  be 
said,  of  the  unfortunate  objects  of  their  solicitude.  Since 
the  captain  arrived  at  Gorodishko  not  one  political  exile  had 
been  released.  If  the  ispravnik  gave  a  good  account  of  a 
man  the  captain  gave  him  a  bad  one,  whereas  if  the  lat- 
ter had  reported  favorably  of  any  one  the  former  re- 
ported unfavorably. 

It  was  the  captain  of  gendarmerie  who  on  the  present  oc- 
casion checkmated  his  adversary.  A  well-drawn  up  de- 
nunciation was  forwarded  to  the  governor  of  the  province 
by  the  first  courier  The  answer,  the  nature  of  which  it  was 
easy  to  foresee,  was  not  long  in  coming.  The  ispravnik  re- 
ceived a  severe  reprimand,  and  a  threat  of  dismissal  ''for 
his  careless  supervision  of  the  political  exiles,"  and  the 
license  he  had  allowed  them. 

This  rap  on  the  knuckles  so  terrified  the  chief  of  police, 
that  not  alone  were  the  exiles  forbidden  to  give  each  other 
lessons,  but  placed  under  something  like  a  state  of  siege.  If 
there  were  too  many  of  them  in  a  room  at  the  same  time  the 
gendarmes  knocked  at  the  window  as  a  summons  to  disperse. 
They  were  also  forbidden  to  form  groups  in  the  streets — in 
other  words,  to  walk  together — an  order  in  a  town  of  one 
street  somewhat  difficult  of  execution,  and  which  led  to 
several  misunderstandings  with  the  police. 

*  * 

Ties  are  early  formed  in  exile,  for  exiles,  exposed  as  they 


210  EUS3IA   UNDER  THE   TZARS. 

are  to  vexations  on  every  hand,  to  all  sorts  of  annoyance  and 
ill-will,  naturally  cling  to  each  other  and  take  refuge  in 
their  own  little  world.  Like  people  in  colleges,  prisons, 
barracks,  and  on  board  ship,  they  are  thrown  so  much  to- 
gether that  the  least  similarity  of  character  and  sentiment 
leads  to  intimacies  which  may  grow  into  lifelong  friendships. 

After  the  setting  in  of  winter  our  friends'  little  commune 
received  an  accession  in  the  person  of  the  starik,  who  had 
become  much  attached  to  them.  They  lived  together 
like  a  family,  but  the  two  that  seemed  to  form  the  strongest 
intimacy  were  Taras  and  young  Orshine. 

In  the  growth  of  friendships  there  is  something  strange 
and  not  easily  definable.  Perhaps  it  was  the  very  contrast 
of  their  natures — the  one  concentrated  and  sclf-j)ossessed, 
the  other  expansive  and  enthusiastic — which  drew  these 
men  together  ;  or  perhaps  it  was  the  need  of  having  some- 
body to  support  and  protect  that  attracted  the  strong  and 
energetic  Taras  to  the  frail  boy,  tender  and  impressionable 
as  a  woman.  Be  that  as  it  may,  they  became  almost  insep- 
arable. Yet  when  the  others  rallied  Taras  on  their 
friendship  he  seemed  annoyed,  saying  it  was  only  habit,  and 
in  his  manner  with  Orshine  there  was  often  a  certain 
measure  of  reserve  and  restraint.  They  did  not  even 
**  thou  "  each  other,  common  as  is  this  practice  among  young 
Russians.  Nevertheless  Taras,  while  hiding  his  feelings 
under  a  variety  of  pretexts  and  subterfuges,  watclied  over  his 
friend  with  the  solicitude  of  a  loving  and  devoted  mother. 

One  day  at  the  beginning  of  spring — in  the  monotony  of 
exile,  albeit  the  days  drag  as  if  they  would  go  on  forever, 
the  months  pass  quickly — the  friends  came  in  from  a  walk. 
They  had  been  repeating  for  the  thousandth  time 
the  same  conjecture  as  to  the  probability  of  a  speedy 
ending  of  their  exile,  and  citing  for  the  hundredth 
time  the  same  signs  in  support  of  their  hopes.  They 
had    also   discussed,  as  usual,  the    expediency  of   trying 


LIFE  IN   EXILE.  211 

to  escape,  and  decided,  as  usual,  in  the  negative.  ISTeither 
of  them  that  at  time  was  bent  on  flight.  They  thought  it 
better  to  wait.  The  revocation  v,'as  sure  to  come.  Both 
were  socialists,  but  Taras  was  all  for  influencing  society 
largely  and  on  the  mass.  He  was  conscious  of  being  an 
orator,  loved  his  art,  and  had  tasted  the  first-fruits  of 
success.  He  had  no  wish  to  sacrifice  the  future  of  his  dream 
— the  only  one  to  which  he  aspired — for  the  underground 
activity  of  a  member  of  the  Terrorist  party.  He  resolved 
therefore  still  to  wait,  although  his  lot  became  even  harder 
to  bear  and  patience  less  easy  to  practise.  Orshine,  on  the 
other  hand,  had  not  a  spark  of  personal  ambition.  It  was 
a  sentiment  he  could  not  even  comprehend.  The  youth 
was  a  genuine  type  of  a  class  of  young  men  common  in 
Eussia  and  known  as  narodnih — enthusiastic  admirers  of 
the  peasantry.  It  had  been  his  wish  to  leave  the  university 
and  take  the  position  of  school-master  in  some  obscure  vil- 
lage, and  there  pass  his  life,  not  in  influencing  the  peasants 
(tliat  would  have  been  unwarrantable  presumption),  but  in 
giving  them  the  rudiments  of  culture.  Though  his  plans 
were  temporarily  thwarted  by  the  troubles  at  the  university, 
in  which  he  could  not  avoid  taking  part,  and  which  had 
caused  his  exile  to  Gorodishko,  he  had  not  renounced  them. 
He  even  desired  to  turn  his  enforced  leisure  to  account  by 
learning  some  handicraft  which  might  help  him  to 
"simplify-' himself,  and  enable  him  the  better  to  study  the 
peasantry  whom,  as  yet,  he  knew  only  in  the  poems  of 
Mekinssoff. 

When  the  friends  reached  the  town  it  was  already  late, 
and  the  peasant  fishermen  were  going  out  for  their  hard 
night's  work.  By  the  rosy  light  of  the  setting  sun  they 
could  see  a  number  of  them  preparing  their  nets.  One  was 
singing. 

"  How  these  fellows  work,  and  yet  they  sing ! "  said 
Orshine,  pityingly. 


212  RUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

Taras,  turning  his  head,  looked  vaguely  in  the  direction 

indicated. 

'*'  What  a  fine  song  !  "  went  on  Orshine.  *'  It  is  as  if  some- 
thing of  the  soul  of  the  people  vibrated  in  it.  I  find  it  very 
melodious,  don't  you  ?  " 

Taras  shook  his  head  and  laughed  lightly.  But  his  attention 
had  been  roused,  and  when  he  came  near  the  singer  he  list- 
ened. The  words  of  the  song  struck  him.  It  was  evidently 
an  old  ballad,  and  he  conceived  on  the  instant  an  idea. 
He  thought  he  had  found  an  occupation  which  would  help 
to  while  away  the  time.  He  would  make  a  collection  of  pop- 
ular songs  and  traditions,  a  collection  which  might  possibly 
form  a  valuable  contribution  to  folk-lore  and  literature. 

When  he  communicated  his  idea  to  Orshine,  the  latter 
found  it  splendid,  another  got  the  peasant  to  repeat  his  song, 
and  made  a  note  of  it  there  and  then. 

They  both  went  to  bed  in  high  spirits,  and  the  next  day 
Taras  set  out  in  search  of  the  treasures  which  he  proposed 
to  gather.     He  did   not  think  it  necessary  to  make  any 
secret  of  his  intention.     Twenty  years  before  a  company 
of   exiles    had    openly    undertaken    a    similar  work,    and 
enriched  science  with  specimens  of  the  folk-lore  of  Xorthem 
Russia   previously     unknown.      But   that   was  one    time, 
this  was  another."     The  ispravnik  had  not   forgotten   the 
affair  of  the  lessons.     When  he   heard  of  the    exile's  new 
enterprise  he  was  furious,  and  sent  for  Taras  to  his  office, 
when  a  scene  took  place  which  the  latter  did  not  soon  for- 
get.    The  ispravniTc,  that  brute  with  a  thief's  wages,  dared 
to  insult  him,  Taras  ;  dared  to  threaten  him  with  a  dungeon 
for  *'  disturbing  people's  minds  "—as  if  these   stupid  scan- 
dal-mongers ever  had  any  minds!  All  the  pride  of  his  nature 
.was    thoroughly  roused.     He  would  have  liked  to  knock 
"the  fellow  down.     But  he  refrained  ;  they  would  have  shot 
him  on  the  spot ;  that  would  have  been  too  great  a  triumph 
.  for  the  blackguards.     So  Taras  spoke  never  a  word  ;  but 


LIFE   IN   EXILE.  213 

when  he  left  the  police  ofiBce,  his  deadly  paleness  sLowed 
how  sharp  had  been  the  conflict  and  how  much  it  had  cost 
him  to  keep  his  temper. 

The  same  evening,  when  he  and  his  friend  were  returning 
from  a  long  and  silent  walk,  Taras  said  suddenly — 

'*  Why  should  we  not  go  away  ?  The  one  can  be  no  worse 
than  the  other." 

Orshine  made  no  reply.  He  could  not  as  yet  make  up  his 
mind.  Taras  understood.  He  understood  also  why  Orshine 
demurred  to  his  proposal ;  for  exiles,  like  long-married 
couj^les,  know  each  other  so  well  that  answers  are  often  un- 
necessary ;  they  can  dirine  their  companions'  thoughts  and 
interpret  their  unspoken  words. 

The  younger  exile,  moreover,  was  in  good  spirits.  A 
school  had  been  opened  at  Gorodishko  ;  a  governess  of  the 
new  style  was  on  her  way  to  take  charge  of  it,  and  Orshine 
awaited  her  arrival  with  impatience.  It  pleased  him  to 
think  that  he  would  make  her  acquaintance,  and  take  lessons 
from  her  in  the  art  of  teaching.  He  could  have  consented 
to  stay  a  long  time  at  Gorodishko  if  he  might  have  had  per- 
mission to  help  her.       But  of  that  there  was  no  question. 

At  length  the  new  teacher  came.  She  had  gone  through 
a  course  of  pedagogy,  and  was  the  first  to  begin  the  new 
system  of  teaching  at  Gorodishko.  All  the  fashionable 
people  of  the  place  went  to  see  the  young  woman  at  work 
with  as  much  curiosity  as  if  the  school  had  been  a  me- 
nagerie and  she  a  tamer  of  wild  beasts.  Orshine  could  not 
help  making  her  acquaintance,  and  when  he  waited  on  her 
he  met  with  a  very  cordial  reception.  Passionately  attached 
to  her  calling,  the  young  teacher  was  delighted  to  meet  with 
somebody  who  shared  in  her  enthusiasm  and  sympathized  in 
her  views.  Orshine  left  her  house  with  a  pile  of  pedagogic 
books  under  his  arm,  and  his  visit  was  followed  by  several 
others.  But  one  day  when  he  called  he  found  the  young 
woman   in  great  trouble.     She  had  been   summarily  dis- 


214  EUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZAE3. 

missed  from  the  situation  "  for  having  relations  -n-ith  politi- 
cal exiles,'* 

Orshine  was  in  dispair.  He  protested  energetically  against 
the  teacher's  dismissal,  and  pleaded  warmly  in  her  favor, 
pointing  out  that  it  was  he  who  had  sought  her  acquaiu- 
tancG,  not  she  who  had  sought  his.  But  all  was  in  vain  ; 
the  authorities  vv'ere  not  to  be  moved  from  their  purpose, 
and  the  unfortunate  teacher  had  to  go. 

As  Taras  and  Orshine  returned  from  the  wharf,  whither 
they  ])ad  been  to  see  her  off,  the  former  repeated  the  ques- 
tion he  had  so  often  put  before — 

"Well,  don't  you  think  I  am  right  ?  "  he  said.  ''One 
can  be  no  worse  than  the  other." 

**  Yes,  yes,"  answered  the  younger  man  passionately.  He 
had  borne  the  wrongs  inflicted  on  himself  with  a  patience 
and  forbearance  which  to  his  friend  was  simply  exasperat- 
ing.    But  now  the  cup  had  run  over. 

"If  we  are  not  liberated  this  winter  we  will  escape,"  re- 
sumed Taras.     "  What  do  you  say  ?  " 

"Yes,  yes  ;  by  all  means." 

The  winter  brought  only  new  troubles. 

* 
«        * 

It  was  mail  day.  Writing  and  receiving  letters  were  the 
only  events  that  broke  the  sameness  of  that  stagnant  world. 
It  might  almost  be  said  that  the  exiles  lived  only  between 
one  mail  day  and  the  other.  The  post  arrived  at  Gorodisbko 
every  ten  days — that  is  to  say,  about  three  times  a  mouth. 
Although,  according  to  the  regulations,  an  exile's  corre- 
spondence is  not  of  necessity  censured,  none  of  the  Goro- 
disbko exiles  were  spared  the  infliction,  for  the  administra- 
tion shrewdly  calculated  that  the  privilege  of  exemption,  if 
granted  to  one,  must  be  granted  to  all.  They  therefore 
granted  it  to  none,  and  all  the  letters  addressed  to  the  exiles, 
after  being  read  by  the  ispravnik,  were  resealed  with  his 


LIFE   IN    EXILE.  '  215 

own  seal  and  forwarded  to  their  owners.  Their  friends 
never,  of  course,  thought  of  Wi'iting  to  them  anything  of  a 
compromising  character,  any  more  than  if  they  had  been 
actual  prisoners,  everybody  being  aware  that  all  their  letters 
passed  through  the  hands  of  the  police.  But  owing  to  the 
crass  ignorance  of  the  officials  of  that  remote  region,  the 
censorship  of  correspondence  gives  rise  to  innumerable  vexa- 
tious. A  scientific  phrase,  or  a  word  of  foreign  origin,  is 
enough  to  put  them  into  a  paroxysm  of  suspicion,  and  a 
long-looked-for  and  ardently-desired  letter  is  lost  in  the  bot- 
tomless pit  of  the  Third  Section.  The  greater  part  of 
*'  misunderstandings "  with  the  police  are  caused  by  the 
confiscation  of  correspondence.  Letters  written  by  the 
exiles  of  Gorodishko  were  treated  in  the  same  way.  To  pre- 
vent them  from  evading  the  humiliating  obligation,  a  police- 
man was  always  stationed  by  the  single  letter-box  the  place 
possessed,  and  he  seized  without  scruple  any  mail  matter 
that  an  exile  or  his  landlady  attempted  to  post.  A  few 
coj^ecks  might  have  closed  one  of  the  fellow's  eyes — perhaps 
both  of  them.  But  what  would  have  been  the  use  ?  The 
people  of  Gorodishko  are  so  little  given  to  correspondence, 
that  the  postmaster  knows  the  handwriting  of  every  one  of 
them,  and  can  recognize  an  exile's  letter  at  a  glance.  Nor 
is  this  all.  The  correspondence  of  the  natives  is  confined  to 
Archangelsk,  chief  town  of  the  province  and  head-quarters 
of  its  trade.  Letters  addressed  to  Odessa,  Kieff,  Caucas, 
and  other  distant  cities,  belonged  almost  exclusively  to  the 
exiles. 

To  evade  tlie  censorship,  then,  it  was  necessary  to  hit  on 
some  special  expedient,  and  it  one  day  occurred  to  Orshine 
to  utilize  for  this  purpose  a  book  he  was  returning  to  a  com- 
rade at  Odessa.  He  wrote  a  long  epistle  on  the  margins, 
so  arranging  the  book  that,  as  he  thought,  it  would  not 
easily  open  at  the  part  where  he  had  written.  He  had  prac- 
tised the  stratagem  before,  and  always  with  success.     But 


216  RUSSIA    UNDER   THE   TZARS. 

this  time  an  accident  led  to  its  discovery,  and  there  was  a 
terrible  to  do.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  Orshine  had 
written  nothing  very  particular  or  serious.  "What  that  is 
serious  or  particular  has  an  exile  to  say  ?  But  Orshine,  when 
he  penned  the  epistle,  being  in  a  bantering  vein,  drew  a 
picture  more  sarcastic  than  flattering  of  the  fashionable  and 
official  world  of  Gorodishko,  in  which,  as  mav  be  supposed, 
the  ispravnih  and  his  wife  occupied  a  prominent  place.  The 
chief  of  police,  who  had  discovered  the  secret  of  the  book, 
was  beside  himself  with  rage.  Running  across  to  our  friends' 
quarters,  he  threw  himself  among  them  like  a  bombshell. 

"Mr.  Orshine,  put  on  your  clothes  at  once.  You  must 
go  to  prison. " 

"  Why,  what  has  happened  ?  "  said  the  young  man,  in 
great  surprise. 

"  You  have  been  sending  clandestine  correspondence  to 
the  papers  with  the  object  of  exposing  the  established  au- 
thorities to  ridicule  and  disrespect,  and  shaking  the  pillars  of 
rule." 

On  this  the  friends  perceived  what  had  come  to  pass,  and 
were  very  much  disposed  to  laugh  in  the  ispravnik's  face. 
But  it  was  hardly  a  time  for  laughter.  They  had  to  protect 
their  friend  and  assert  their  rights. 

"  Orshine  shall  not  go  to  prison.  You  have  no  right  to 
put  him  there,"  said  Taras,  ilrmly. 

"  I  did  not  speak  to  you.  Shut  your  mouth.  Make  haste, 
Orshine. " 

"  We  shall  not  let  you  take  Orshine  to  prison,"  repeated 
Taras,  looking  the  ispravnik  full  in  the  face. 

He  spoke  resolutely  and  slowly,  a  sign  with  him  of  grow- 
ing anger. 

"  He  is  ill,"  put  in  Losinski. 

All  took  the  same  line,  and  thus  followed  a  hot  dispute. 
Meanwhile  the  other  exiles,  having  got  wind  of  what  was 
going  on,  hurried  to  the  spot  and  joined  in  the  remonstrances 


LIFE  IN"  EXILE.  217 

of  their  friends.  Taras  took  the  lead,  and  despite  Orshine's 
pressing  and  reiterated  request,  that  they  would  not  com- 
promise themselves  on  his  account,  they  refused  to  let  him 

go- 

"  If  you  put  him  in  prison  you  must  put  us  all  there,"  they 

shouted. 

*'  And  then  we  will  knock  the  old  carcass  in  pieces  about 
your  ears,"  said  Taras. 

The  aSair  began  to  look  ugly,  for  the  ispravnih  threat- 
ened to  call  his  men  to  arms  and  use  force.  In  the  end 
Orshine  insisted  on  giving  himself  up,  and  his  friends  reluc- 
tantly allowed  him  to  be  taken  away. 

.  He  was  kept  in  the  lock-up  only  two  days,  but  the  incident 
embittered  still  further  the  relations  between  the  exiles  and 
the  police.  The  former  took  their  revenge  in  the  only  way 
open  to  them.  It  so  happened  that  the  ispravnih  had  a 
morbid  and  almost  superstitious  dread  of  newspaper  criticism. 
The  exiles  resolved  to  strike  the  man  in  his  tenderest  point. 
They  wrote  a  sarcastic  letter  about  him,  and  contrived  to 
send  it  to  a  St.  Petersburg  paper  by  a  roundabout  way. 
The  letter  duly  reached  its  destination  and  appeared  in  print, 
not  only  hitting  its  mark,  but  causing  considerable  excite- 
ment. The  governor  himself  was  annoyed,  and  ordered  an 
inquiry.  Many  of  the  exiles  and  their  lodgi.igs  were  searched 
**  for  traces  of  the  crime  ;  "  and  as  the  guilty  man  could  not 
be  detected,  all  were  suspected  in  turn,  and  submitted  to 
every  sort  of  petty  persecution,  especially  as  touching  their 
correspondence.  The  police  insisted  on  the  strict  observance 
of  every  article  of  the  regulation,  in  the  application  of  which 
the  exiles  had  hitherto  succeeded  in  obtaining  considerable 
indulgence.  Losinski  was  the  first  to  suffer  from  this  change 
of  policy.  The  eternal  question  of  his  medical  practice 
again  came  up.  A  contention  on  this  subject  had  been  go- 
ing on  ever  since  the  doctor's  arrival  at  Gorodishko.  The 
last  pretext  on  which  he  had  been  refused  permission  to 


218  RUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

practise  was  that  he  might  profit  by  it  to  make  a  political 
propaganda.     Yet  wheu  one  of  the  officials  or  some  member 
of  their  families  fell  ill,  he  would  often  be  called  in.     In 
this  way  his  professional  activity  came  to  be  practically  tol- 
erated, if  not  openly  recognized.     But  he  was  now  roundly 
informed  by  the  ispravnik  that  if  he  did  not  strictly  comply 
with  the  regulations  his  disobedience  would  be  reported  to 
the  governor.     The  chief  of  police  had  no  idea  of  risking 
the  loss  of  his  place  in  order  "  to  give  Dr.  Losinski  pleasure." 
Nor  were  the   others    more  tenderly  dealt  with.      The 
supervision  exercised  over  them  by  the  police  was  almost 
past  bearing.     They  were  not  allowed  to  extend  their  walks 
beyond  the  limits  of  the  wretched  little  town,  which  thus 
became  their  prison.     They  were  continually  annoyed  by 
visits  of  inspection,  equivalent  to  the  roll-calls  of  the  pris- 
ons.    Not  a  morning  passed  that  a  policeman  did  not  call 
to  inquire  about  their  healtli.     Every  other  day  they  had  to 
call  at  the  police  office  and  enter  their  names  in  a  book 
kept  for  the  purpose.     Virtually  they  were  in  a  jail— a  jail 
without  cells,  yet  surrounded  by  a  vast  desert  which  cut 
Gorodishko  off  from  the  world  of  the  living  more  effectually 
than  granite  walls.     The  police,  moreover,   had  the  exiles 
continually  in  view ;  the  latter  could  never  appear  in  the 
street  without  being  followed  by  one  or  more  gendarmes. 
Whether  they  went  in  or  out,  whether  they  paid  a  visit  or  re- 
ceived a  friend,  they  were  always  under  the  eye  of  the  isprav- 
oiih  or  his  acrents. 

This  was  all  the  more  discouraging  as  there  was  little 
prospect  of  a  change  for  the  better.  On  the  contrarv,  the 
chances  were  rather  in  favor  of  an  aggravation  than  an 
amelioration  of  their  lot,  for,  as  they  learned  from  the  isprav- 
m'k's  secretary,  a  storm  was  brewing  against  them  at  Arch- 
angelsk.  They  were  in  bad  odor  with  the  governor,  and  it 
was  probable  that  some  of  their  number  would  be  sent  before 
long  to  a  town  still  more  to  the  north. 


LIFE   I2f   EXILE.  219 

In  these  circumstances  further  hesitation  would  have  been 
foolish,  and  Taras  and  Orshine  informed  their  companions 
of  the  commune,  and  afterwards  the  entire  colony,  that  they 
had  decided  to  attempt  an  escape.  Their  resolution  met 
with  general  approval,  and  four  of  their  fellow-exiles  deter- 
mined to  follow  their  example.  But  it  being  out  of  the 
question  for  six  men  to  go  away  at  once,  it  was  arranged  that 
they  should  leave  two  at  a  time.  Taras  and  Orshine  were 
to  be  the  first  pair,  Losinski  and  Ursitch  the  nest,  while  the 
third  was  to  be  composed  of  two  of  the  older  exiles.  The 
colony  talked  of  nothing  else.  The  whole  of  the  common 
fund  was  placed  at  the  disposal  of  the  fugitives,  and  to  in- 
crease it  by  a  fev-^  roubles  the  exiles  imposed  on  themselves 
the  greatest  privations.  The  remainder  of  the  winter 
passed  in  discussing  the  various  projects  which  vrere  sug- 
gested, and  preparing  for  the  great  event. 

In  addition  to  the  political  exiles,  Gorodishko  possessed 
about  twenty  ordinary  transports— pickpockets,  petty  forg- 
ers,  larcenous  tcJiinovniks,  and  other  rogues  of  divers  grades. 
These  malefactors  were  all  far  more  indulgently  treated  than 
the  politicals.  Their  correspondence  was  not  censored,  and 
so  long  as  they  were  occupied  were  let  alone.  But  they  did 
not  much  care  to  be  occupied,  preferring  rather  to  live  by 
begging  and  pilfering.  The  authorities,  who  are  "  dogs  and 
wolves"  with  the  politicals,  show  great  forbearance  towards 
the  rogues,  with  whom  they  have  evidently  a  fellow-feeling, 
and  take  tithe  of  their  plunder.  These  commune  transports 
are  the  scourge  of  the  country.  Sometimes  they  form  them- 
selves into  organized  gangs.  Tliere  was  one  town,  Sheu- 
koursk,  which  they  actually  put  in  a  state  of  siege.  Nobody 
was  allowed  either  to  go  out  or  come  in  without  paying  them 
black-mail.  At  Kholmogori  their  conduct  rose  to  such  a 
height  that  the  governor,  Ignatieft,  had  to  proceed  to  the 


220  RUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

place  in  person  before  they  could  be  reduced  to  order.  He 
called  the  rascals  before  him,  and  gave  them  a  paternal  lect- 
ure on  their  misconduct.  They  listened  with  the  utmost 
respect,  promised  to  behave  better  in  the  future,  and,  as  they 
left  the  audience  chamber,  stole  his  samovar.  As  it  was  a 
very  fine  samovar,  and  the  police  were  unable  to  recover  it, 
a  message  of  peace  was  sent  to  the  thieves,  and  negotiations 
were  opened  for  the  return  of  the  stolen  property.  In  the 
end  the  governor  ransomed  his  samovar  with  a  payment  of 
five  roubles. 

The  relations  between  the  two  classes  of  exiles  are  some- 
what peculiar.  The  rogues  profess  great  respect  for  the  po- 
liticals and  render  them  many  services— a  respect,  however, 
which  does  not  prevent  tliem  from  cheating  their  fellow- 
exiles  and  taking  their  money  whenever  opportunity  offers. 

As  the  thieves  were  less  closely  watched  Ihan  the  polit- 
icals, it  occurred  to  Ursitch  that  they  might  be  turned  to 
good  account  in  the  matter  of  the  contemplated  escape. 
But  though  this  plan  had  many  advantages,  it  had  one  great 
drawback.  The  thieves,  most  of  whom  v/ere  confirmed 
drunkards,  could  not  be  trusted.  Yet  the  co-operation  of 
somebody  outside  their  own  body,  if  not  absolutely  neces- 
sary, was  very  desirable,  and  the  question  arose  as  to  what 
they  should  do. 

"I  have  it!"  exclaimed  Losinski  one  day.  "1  have 
spotted  my  man — Uskinibai  !  " 

''The  Sultan?" 

"Yes,  the  Sultan.     He  is  the  very  man  !" 

The  doctor  had  cured  him  of  an  affection  of  the  chest,  to 
which  the  wild  men  of  the  steppes  are  always  liable  when 
transported  to  the  frozen  north,  and  from  that  moment 
Uskimbai  had  shown  for  his  benefactor  the  blind  affection 
of  a  dog  for  his  master.  He  was  a  man  upon  whom  they 
could  count — honest  and  simple,  a  very  child  of  nature. 

The  commune  invited  the  Sultan  to  tea,  and  explained 


LIFE   IN  EXILE.  221 

what  they  desired  him  to  do.  He  agreed  without  hesitation 
to  everything  they  proposed,  and  entered  heartily  into  the 
exiles'  plans.  Being  nnder  a  much  more  liberal  regime  than 
the  politicals,  he  was  allowed  to  carry  on  a  little  trade  in 
cattle,  and  from  time  to  time  visited  the  neighboring 
villages,  where  he  had  several  acquaintances,  and  would  be 
able  to  conduct  the  fugitives  to  the  first  stage.  In  his 
anxiety  to  oblige  the  doctor  and  his  friends,  who  alone  at 
Gorodishko  had  befriended  him,  the  poor  fellow  made  little 
of  the  danger  of  detection. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  dwell  on  the  details  of  the  escape.  It 
was  effected  under  the  best  auspices.  Uskimbai  acquitted 
himself  of  his  task  to  admiration,  and  brought  back  the 
news  of  the  fugitives'  safe  arrival  at  the  first  relay  (stage) 
and  their  departure  for  Archangelsk.  A  week  passed  quiet- 
ly ;  another,  and  unwonted  activity  was  observed  among  the 
police.  It  was  a  bad  sign,  and  the  exiles  feared  that  some 
ill  had  befallen  the  fugitives.  This  foreboding  was  only  too 
quickly  realized.  A  few  days  later  they  heard  from  the 
ispravniFs  secretary  that  at  Archangelsk  their  friends  had 
fallen  under  the  suspicion  of  the  police,  and  that,  although 
they  succeeded  in  getting  away,  they  -were  followed,  and 
after  a  chase  of  five  days,  during  which  they  underwent 
terrible  hardships,  they  fell,  faint  and  exhausted  with  hunger 
and  fatigue,  into  the  hands  of  their  enemies,  who  treated 
them  with  the  utmost  brutality.  Orshine  was  struck  and 
rendered  almost  insensible.  Taras  defended  himself  with 
his  revolver,  but  was  overpowered,  disarmed  and  fettered. 
The  two  were  then  thrust  into  a  carriage  and  taken  to 
Archangelsk,  where  Orshine  had  been  placed  in  the  hospital 
to  be  cured  of  his  wounds. 

This  was  a  thunder-stroke  for  the  exiles,  and  plunged 
them  into  the  deepest  distress.  For  a  long  time  they  re- 
mained in  mournful  silence,  every  man  fearing  to  look  his 
neighbor  in  the  face  lest  he  should  see  there  the  reflection 


223  RUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZAES. 

of  his  own  despair.  And  yet  every  object,  every  incident, 
recalled  these  unfortunate  friends,  whom  a  community  of 
suffering  had  made  as  dear  to  them  as  their  own  kin.  It  was 
only  when  they  were  gone  that  they  knew  how  much  they 
had  loved  these  lost  ones. 

On  one  of  the  three  remaining  members  of  the  commune 
this  new  trouble  had  an  unlooked-for  effect.  The  cvenino- 
of  the  third  day  after  the  arrival  of  the  fatal  news,  Starik'^ 
who  had  been  much  depressed,  was  persuaded  to  make  a 
visit  to  one  of  his  old  friends  of  another  commune.  He  was 
expected  back  about  eleven.  Yet  eleven  came  and  went, 
and  no  Starik  ;  but  at  the  stroke  of  twelve  the  outer  door 
opened,  and  the  tread  of  halting  footsteps  was  heard  in  the 
corridor.  It  could  not  be  Starik  ;  he  was  not  wont  to  walk 
unsteadily.  Ursitch  went  outside,  holding  a  candle  over  his 
head,  to  see  who  the  intruder  was,  and  by  its  fitful  light  per- 
ceived the  figure  of  a  man  leaning  helplessly  against  the 
wall.  It  was  Starik,  blind  drunk — the  first  time  be  had 
been  in  such  a  state  since  he  had  joined  the  commune.  The 
others  bfougbt  him  in,  and  the  work  of  looking  after  their 
unfortunate  friend  served  in  some  measure  to  lighten  the 
burden  of  their  affliction. 


The  year  following  was  marked  by  many  sorrowful  inci- 
dents. Taras  was  tried  for  armed  resistance  to  the  police, 
and  sentenced  to  hard  labor  for  life.  Orshiue,  before  he  had 
recovered  from  his  hurts,  was  transported  to  an  Esquimaux 
village  in  seventy  degrees  of  north  latitude,  where  the 
ground  thaws  only  six  weeks  in  tlic  year.  Losinski  had  a 
letter  from  him,  full  of  sadness,  a  letter  that  left  no  doulot 
as  to  what  the  end  would  be.  The  poor  fellow  was  very  ill. 
His  chest,  he  said,  was  in  such  a  state  that  he  felt  fit  for 
nothing,  ''and  you  are  not  here  to  make  me  listen  to 
reason."    His  teeth  were  playing  him  traitor,  and  showed  a 


LIFE   IN   EXILE.  223 

gTeat  desire  to  leave  his  mouth.  This  was  in  allusion  to  the 
scurvy,  a  disease  peculiarly  fatal  in  polar  regions.  In  the 
same  hamlet  with  Orshine  was  another  exile,  sent  thither, 
like  himself,  for  attempting  to  escape.  '  They  were  evidently 
very  wretched,  being  often  without  either  meat  or  bread. 
Orshine  had  abandoned  all  hope  of  ever  again  seeing  his 
friends.  Even  if  a  chance  of  escaping  were  to  present  itself 
he  could  not  profit  thereby,  so  utter  was  his  weakness.  He 
concluded  with  these  words  :  ''  This  spring  I  hope  to  die." 
And  he  died  before  the  time  himself  had  fixed.  About  his 
death,  moreover,  there  was  something  mysterious.  It  was 
never  exactly  known  whether  he  died  naturally,  or  shortened 
his  sufferings  by  suicide. 

In  the  meanwhile  the  lives  of  the  exiles  had  become  more 
and  more  insupportable.  After  the  attempted  escape  of  the 
two  friends  the  tyranny  of  their  custodians  increased,  and 
their  hope  of  being  restored  to  liberty  and  civilization 
vanished  almost  to  nothingness.  For  as  the  revolutionary 
movement  extended,  the  severity  of  the  Government  towards 
those  whom  it  retained  in  its  power  became  greater  ;  and  as 
a  further  check  on  attempts  to  escape  it  was  decreed  that 
every  such  attempt  should  be  punished  by  exile  to  Eastern 
Siberia. 

But  all  the  same,  escapes  continued  to  be  attempted.  The 
Gorodishko  police,  fatigued  with  their  own  zeal,  had  hardly 
begun  to  relax  their  precaution  when  Losinski  and  Ursitch 
made  ofc.  It  was  a  desperate  enterprise,  for  they  were  so 
ill-supplied  with  money  that  success  was  almost  out  of  the 
question.  But  Losinski  could  not  wait.  He  was  on  the 
point  of  being  transferred  to  another  town  because  he  had 
not  been  able  to  refuse  the  appeal  of  a  mother  to  visit  her 
sick  child  and  of  a  husband  to  attend  his  fever-stricken 
wife.  Fortune,  moreover,  did  not  favor  them.  They  were 
compelled  to  separate  on  the  way,  and  from  that  time  forth 
Losinski  was  heard  of  no  more.     He  disappeared  without 


224  RUSSIA    UXDER   THE   TZARS. 

leavine  a  trace  behind.  His  fate  is  therefore  a  matter  of 
conjecture.  Having  to  traverse  the  forests  on  foot,  he 
probably  lost  his  way,  and  either  died  of  hunger  or  fell  a 
prey  to  the  wolves  which  infest  that  part  of  the  country. 

Ursitch,  in  the  beginning,  was  more  fortunate.  Not  hav- 
ing enough  money  to  pay  his  way  to  St.  Petersburg,  he  en- 
gaged himself  at  Vologdh  as  a  common  laborer,  and  worked 
there  until  he  had  saved  enough  to  continue  his  journey. 
But  at  the  very  moment  he  entered  the  train  he  was  recog- 
nized and  recaptured,  and  subsequently  condemned  to  life- 
long exile  in  the  land  of  the  wild  Yakoutes. 

As  he  marched  along  the  tear-bedewed  road  to  Siberia, 
escorted  by  soldiers  and  surrounded  by  companions  in  mis- 
fortune, he  met,  not  far  from  Krasnoiarsk,  a  post-carriage 
drawn  by  three  horses  and  going  at  full  speed.  The  face  of 
the  principal  occupant,  a  well-dressed  man  in  a  cocked  hat, 
seemed  familiar  to  him.  He  looked  more  attentively,  and 
could  hardly  restrain  a  cry  of  joy  as  he  recognized  in  the 
traveller  his  friend  Taras— Taras  himself.  He  could  not  be 
mistaken.  This  time,  at  least,  Taras  had  succeeded  in  es- 
caping, and  was  now  on  his  way  to  Eussia  as  fast  as  three 
fleet  horses  could  take  him. 

Quickly  the  carriage  came  on,  passed  like  a  flash,  and  dis- 
appeared in  a  cloud  of  dust.  But  in  that  brief  moment — 
was  it  illusion  or  was  it  reality  ? — it  seemed  to  him  that  he 
had  caught  his  friend's  eye,  and  that  a  gleam  of  recognition 
and  pity  swept  over  his  energetic  face. 

As  Ursitch  looked  backward  towards  the  fast-flying  car- 
riage, all  the  sorrowful  past  which  that  face  recalled  rose 
before  him  ;  and  he  saw,  like  an  impassable  gulf,  the  dark 
future  which  awaited  him  and  his  fellow-captives.  But  he 
wished  all  success  to  the  fugitive,  whom  he  knew  to  be 
brave  and  strong,  and  made  him  in  thought  the  bearer  of 
his  hopes  and  the  executor  of  his  vengeance. 

Whether  Taras  really  recognized  his  friend  in  the  fettered 


LIFE  IK  EXILE.  225 

convict  by  tlie  wayside  we  arc  unable  to  say.  But  we  know 
that  he  faithfully  accomplished  the  mission  mutely  confided 
to  him.  At  St.  Petersburg  he  joined  the  party  of  action, 
and  for  three  years  he  fought  on — without  resting  either 
head  or  arm — wherever  the  battle  was  hottest.  When  at 
last  he  was  taken  and  condemned  to  death,  he  could  say 
proudly  and  with  all  justice  that  he  had  done  his  duty. 
Bat  they  did  not  hang  him ;  his  sentence  was  commuted 
to  imprisonment  for  life,  and  he  was  left  to  perish  in  the 
Fortress  of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul. 

Thus,  at  the  end  of  five  years,  there  remained  of  the  little 
family  by  adoption,  which  had  first  met  in  that  remote 
northern  village,  bat  one  "  living  " — that  is  to  say  free  from 
chains.  This  solitary  survivor  was  Starik.  He  is  still  in 
the  same  place,  without  hope  and  without  future,  not  de- 
siring even  to  quit  the  wretched  tov/n  where  he  has  stayed 
so  long,  for  in  the  state  to  which  he  is  reduced  what  is  he 
fit  for,  the  unfortunate  ? 


My  story  is  finished.  Though  it  may  not  be  cheerfal  or 
diverting,  it  has  at  least  the  merit  of  being  true.  I  have 
simply  tried  to  reproduce  the  reality.  The  scenes  I  have 
described  are  being  continually  repeated  in  the  hulks  of 
Siberia  and  other  northern  towns  which  the  Government 
has  transformed  into  veritable  prisons.  Even  worse  things 
than  I  have  told  come  to  pass  ;  for  I  have  narrated  only 
ordinary  cases,  not  wishing  to  take  advantage  of  the  right 
given  me  by  the  form  1  have  adopted  in  this  sketch  to  darken 
my  colors  for  the  sake  of  dramatic  effect.  To  prove  this  I 
need  only  make  a  few  extracts  from  the  official  report  of  a 
personage  whom  none  certainly  will  accuse  of  exaggeration — 
General  Baranoff,  formerly  prefect  of  St.  Petersburg,  now 
Governor  of  Riazan,  and  who  for  a  short  time  was  governor 
of  the  province  of  Archangelsk.  Let  the  reader  himself 
10* 


336  BUSSIA   UXDER  THE  TZARS. 

read  between  the  lines  of  this  matter-of-fact  document  the 
tears,  the  sorrows,  and  the  tragedies  which  its  every  page 
reflects. 

I  translate,  of  course,  literally,  retaining  the  conventional 
expressions  employed  by  a  Kussian  employe  when  addressing 
the  cabinet  of  the  Tzar. 

*'  From  the  exjDerience  of  past  years,  and  my  own  personal 
observation,"  says  the  general,  *' I  have  arrived  at  the  con- 
clusion that  administrative  exile  for  political  causes  tends 
rather  to  exasperate  a  man  and  infect  him  with  perverse 
ideas  than  to  correct  him  (correction  being  the  officially 
declared  object  of  exile).  The  change  from  a  life  of  ease  to 
a  life  of  privation,  from  life  in  the  bosom  of  society  to  separa- 
tion from  all  society,  from  an  activity  more  or  less  active  to 
an  enforced  inaction— all  this  produces  an  effect  so  disas- 
trous that  often,  especially  of  late — (observe  !) — therehave 
occurred  among  the  exiles  cases  of  madness,  of  suicide  and 
attempted  suicide.  All  this  is  but  the  direct  result  of  the 
abnormal  conditions  of  life  under  which  exile  places  educated 
and  intelligent  men.  We  know  no  instances  of  a  man  exiled 
for  motives  based  on  serious  suspicion  of  his  political  con- 
victions leaving  his  exile  reconciled  with  the  Government, 
purged  of  his  errors,  and  converted  into  a  useful  member  of 
society  and  a  faithful  servant  of  the  throne.  On  the  con- 
trary, we  can  affirm  that  very  often  a  man  sent  into  exile  by 
misunderstanding — (observe  again  !  what  an  exemplary  con- 
fession is  this) — or  by  an  error  of  the  administration,  be- 
comes— partly  owing  to  personal  exasperation,  partly  by  the 
influence  of  men  really  hostile  to  the  Government — himself 
hostile  to  the  Government.  As  for  the  man  in  whom  are 
already  implanted  the  germs  of  anti-governmental  tendencies, 
exile,  by  the  whole  of  its  conditions,  will  favor  the  growth 
of  these  germs,  sharpen  his  discontent,  and  transform  his 
theoretic  opposition  into  practical  opposition  ;  i.  c,  into  an 
opposition  extremely  dangerous.     Among  citizens  who  have 


LIFE   I]Sr   EXILE.  227 

no  connection  with  revolution  it  develops,  in  consequence 
of  the  same  conditions,  revolutionary  ideas,  thus  producing 
results  diametrically  opposed  to  those  to  obtain  which  exile 
was  instituted.  And  whatever  may  be  the  outward  con- 
ditions of  an  exile's  life,  exile  itself  gives  the  victim  the  idea 
of  arbitrary  administration,  which  alone  is  sufficieut  to  ex- 
clude all  possibility  of  reconciliation  and  amendment."* 

The  outspoken  general  is  quite  right.  All  who  have  suc- 
ceeded in  escaping  from  exile  have  almost,  without  excep- 
tion, entered  the  ranks  of  the  extreme  Terrorist  party.  Ad- 
ministrative exile,  as  a  correctional  measure,  is  an  absurdity. 
General  Baranoff  must  be  truly  unsophisticated  if  he  believes 
that  the  Govei'nment  is  not  fully  aware  of  this,  or  believes 
for  a  moment  in  the  reformatory  efficacy  of  the  system.  Ad- 
ministrative exile  is  at  once  a  punishment  and  a  formidable 
weapon  of  defence.  Those  who  escape  it  become,  it  is  true, 
determined  enemies  of  the  Government.  But  it  is  an  open 
question  whether  this  result  would  not  equally  come  to  pass 
if  they  were  not  exiled.  There  are  numbers  of  revolutionists 
and  terrorists  who  have  never  undergone  this  ordeal.  For 
every  one  who  escapes  from  exile,  moreover,  tliere  are  a 
hundred  who  remain  and  perish  irrevocably.  Of  the  hun- 
dred the  great  majority  are  entirely  innocent ;  but  ten  or 
fifteen,  or  perhaps  twenty-five,  are  really  enemies  of  the 
Government,  or  likely  in  a  short  time  to  become  so  ;  and 
those  of  them  who  perish  with  the  others  are  so  many  taken 
from  the  devil — so  many  foes  the  fewer. 

The  only  practical  conclusion  Count  Tolstoi  could  draw 
from  the  general's  naif  report  would  be  that  a  decree  of  exile 
should  never  be  revoked  ;  and  this  in  effect  is  the  principle 
on  which  the  Government  consistently  acts. 

*  The  Moscow  Juridic  Beview.    October,  1883. 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

A   DESTROYED  GEXERATIOX. 

We  have  so  far  restricted  ourselves  to  a  description  of  ad- 
ministrative exile  in  its  mildest  form,  as  it  exists  in  the 
northern  provinces  of  European  Russia.  We  have  said 
nothing  of  Siberian  exile  in  general,  of  which  the  peculiarity 
consists  in  the  senseless  and  despotic  brutality  of  the  least 
and  lowest  police  functionaries,  who  have  been  made  what 
they  are  by  the  system  of  penitential  colonies  which  has 
prevailed  in  Siberia  since  its  annexation  to  the  empire  of 
the  Tzars. 

In  the  latter  part  of  the  reign  of  Alexander  II.  there  came 
into  vogue  another  form  of  exile — that  to  Eastern  Siberia. 
It  still  endures,  and  though  considerations  of  space  forbid 
us  to  treat  the  subject  at  length,  it  is  too  important  to  be 
alto-T^ether  isrnored.  The  reader  will  remember  that  most 
of  the  men  whose  cases  we  have  cited  as  examples  of  the  ex- 
treme arbitrariness  of  the  punishment  of  exile  (Dr.  Bely, 
Ju  jakofp,  Kovalcvski,  and  others),  were  banished  to  Eastern 
Siberia — the  country  of  the  Ynkoutes— a  country  apart,  dif- 
fering much  more  from  the  rest  of  Siberia  than  Siberia  differs 
from  European  Russia. 

We  will  not  weary  the  reader  with  descriptions  of  this 
almost  unknown  land,  but  simply  give  the  translation  of  an 
article  which  appeared  in  the  Moscoio  Zemstvo  of  February 
4,  1881.  This  article  gives  the  substance  of  several  letters 
on  the  subject  published,  with  the  j^ermission  of  the  official 
censors,  during  the  brief  period  of  liberalism  which  began 
with  the  dictatorship  of  Loris  Melikoff. 

"We  know  and  we  are  accustomed,"  runs  the  article  in 


A   DESTROYED   GENERATION.  229 

question,  ''  to  the  hard  conditions  of  administrative  exile  in 
European  Russia,  thanks  to  the  bovine  patience  of  our  Rus- 
sian people.  But  as  to  the  conditions  of  Siberian  exile  beyond 
the  Ural  we  have,  until  lately,  known  next  to  nothing.  Our 
ignorance  on  this  score  arises  from  the  fact  that  before  1878- 
79  instances  of  administrative  exile  in  Siberia  were  extremely 
rare.  In  former  time3  we  were  much  more  humane.  The 
instinct  of  moralit}^  not  yet  stifled  by  political  passion,  did 
not  permit  the  sending  of  untried  people  by  administrative 
order  to  a  country  in  which  exile  is  regarded  by  Russians  as 
equivalent  to  penal  servitude.  But  after  a  while  the  admin- 
istration, stopping  at  nothing,  began  to  banish  men  to  places 
the  very  name  of  which  excited  horror.  Even  the  wild 
country  of  the  Yakoutes  is  beginning  to  be  peopled  with 
exiles.  It  might  be  supposed  that  those  who  are  sent  thither 
are  criminals  of  deepest  dye.  But  so  far  the  public  has  heard 
nothing  of  the  nature  of  their  offences,  while,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  Press  has  published  communications  which  remain 
without  contradiction,  proving  that  these  men  have  been 
exiled  on  grounds  as  strange  as  they  are  incomprehensible. 
Thus  M.  Vladimir  Korolenko  relates  in  the  Ifolva  his  sad 
history,  with  the  object,  as  he  says,  of  ascertaining  wherefore 
and  for  what  cause  he  so  narrovdy  escaped  being  exiled  to 
the  land  of  the  Yakoutes.  In  1879  two  searches  were  made 
in  his  lodgings  absolutely  without  result.  This,  however, 
did  not  hinder  him  from  being  sent  to  the  province  of 
Kiatka  for  reasons  which  he  has  been  unable  to  discover. 
After  passing  five  months  in  the  town  of  Glasvo,  he  was  one 
day  honored  with  an  unexpected  visit  from  the  ispravnih, 
■who,  after  making  a  search  of  his  lodgings  without  finding 
anything  suspicious,  informed  our  exile  that  he  would  be 
forthwith  deported  to  the  Huts  {polchinki)  of  Beriosoff,  a 
place  altogether  unsuited  for  a  civilized  being. 

''After  he  had  passed  some  time  in  these  miserable  Huts 
there  suddenly  arrived  several  gendarmes — functionaries  who 


230  EUSSIA    UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

had  never  been  seen  there  before — took  Mr.  Koroleuko  and 
his  slender  baggage,  and  marched  him  off  to  Viatka.  Here 
he  was  kept  fifteen  days  a  prisoner  without  receiving  any  ex- 
planation, or  undergoing  any  examination,  and  then  taken, 
under  escort,  to  the  jaii  of  Vishne  Volotchkov,  whence  there 
is  only  one  road — that  to  Siberia.  Fortunately  for  him  this 
jail  was  visited  during  his  detention  by  a  member  of  the 
Commission  of  Eevision,  Prince  Immeretenski,  whom  Mr. 
Korolenko  prayed  to  inform  him  whither,  and  for  what 
crime,  he  was  to  be  exiled.  The  prince  was  complaisant  and 
humane  enough  to  give  him  the  i^articulars  of  the  case  set 
forth  in  the  official  documents.  According  to  these  jjapers 
Mr.  Korolenko  was  to  be  deijorted  into  the  country  of  the 
Yakoutes  for  attempting  to  escape,  an  offence  which  he  had 
never  committed.  The  Commission  of  Kevision  was  ju; 
then  inquiring  into  the  system  of  i^olitical  exile,  and  a  mul 
titude  of  cases  of  revolting  injustice  was  brought  to  light.  A 
happy  change  now  took  place  in  the  fate  of  Mr.  Korolenko.  At 
the  Tomek  etape  (Western  Siberia)  he  and  several  other  un- 
fortunates were  informed  that  five  of  them  were  to  be  fully 
liberated,  and  five  others  sent  to  European  Russia.  But  all 
are  not  equally  fortunate.  There  are  men  who  continue  to 
enjoy  the  pleasures  of  life  in  the  polar  circle,  albeit  the 
crime  imputed  to  them  differ  in  no  essential  respect  from 
that  imputed  to  Mr.  Korolenko.  Thus  the  Rousshia  Ve- 
domosti  gives  the  history  of  a  young  man  now  at  Verkoi- 
ansk,  whose  adventures  are  truly  remarkable.  He  was  a 
student  at  Kieff  university.  For  complicity  in  some  dis- 
orders that  took  place  there  in  April,  1878,  he  was  exiled  to 
Novgorod,  which,  as  being  a  not  very  remote  province,  is 
reserved  by  the  administration  for  persons  whose  offences 
they  regard  as  venial.  Even  the  severe  administration  of 
that  period  did  not  attribute  to  this  young  man  any  political 
importance,  as  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  a  little  later  he 
was  transferred  from  Novgorod  to  the  pi'ovince  of  Kherson, 


A  DESTROYED   GENERATION.  331 

which  is  much  warmer  and  better  in  every  respect  than  the 
former  district.  It  is  necessary  to  add,  moreover,  that,  ac- 
cording to  the  directions  of  Count  Loris  Melikoff,  all  the 
students  Oi  Kieff  university  who  were  exiled  to  towns  in 
European  Eussia  for  participation  in  university  disorders, 
have  been  liberated  and  allowed  to  resume  their  studies. 
Yet  one  of  these  same  students  is  at  present  living  in  the 
Yakoute  country,  really  because  the  higher  administration 
thought  fit  to  ameliorate  his  lot  by  transferring  him  from 
Novgorod  to  Kherson.  The  fact  is  that  when  Count  Todt- 
leben,  the  Governor-general  of  Odessa,  undertook  to  purge 
the  region  under  his  charge  of  its  noxious  elements,  he 
exiled  to  Siberia,  without  exception,  everybody  who  was 
under  the  supervision  of  the  police  ;  and  to  this  fate  the  ci- 
devant  KiefE  student  had  to  submit  for  no  other  reason  than 
that  it  was  his  ill-fortune  to  be  placed  under  supervision  in 
the  province  of  Kherson  (forming  part  of  the  southern  dis- 
trict) instead  of  tbat  of  Novgorod  ! 

''Another  equally  astounding  instance  of  exile  to  Eastern 
Siberia  is  related  by  the  Moscoiv  Telegraph.  According  to 
the  particulars  set  forth,  this  fate  befell  Mr.  Borodine,  a 
gentleman  who  had  published  in  the  St.  Petersburg  papers 
several  articles  on  local  economic  questions.  He  lived  at 
Viatka  under  police  oversight.  One  evening  at  the  theatre 
he  had  a  dispute  with  the  deputy  pristav  (officer  of  police), 
Mr.  Filimonov,  about  a  place,  in  the  course  of  which  the 
latter  struck  Mr.  Borodine  in  the  presence  of  several  on- 
lookers. The  blow  had  a  decisive  influence  on  the  fortunes 
not  of  the  insulter,  but  of  the  insulted.  Though  the  officer 
was  not  so  much  as  reprimanded,  Mr.  Borodine  was  put  in 
prison,  and  it  required  great  efforts  on  his  own  part  as  well 
as  on  that  of  his  friends  to  procure  his  liberation.  His  free- 
dom, however,  was  of  brief  duration,  for  shortly  thereafter 
he  was  sent  by  etape  (that  is  to  say,  on  foot,  and  with  a  gang 
of  common  malefactors)  to  Eastern  Siberia. 


232  EUSSIA    UNDER  THE   TZARS. 


(C 


But  how  came  it  to  pass  that  Mr.  Borodine  was  exiled, 
seeing  that  his  quarrel  with  the  deputy  pristav  ended  satis- 
factorily in  his  release  from  prison  ?  We  do  not  err  in  say- 
ing that  the  answer  to  this  question  is  found  in  the  com- 
munication addressed  to  the  Rou^shia  Vedomosti  on  the 
exile  to  Viatkaof  the  author  of  certain  articles  printed  m  the 
Aiinals  of  the  Country, the  True  Russian  Wo7'd,^ndi  other  peri- 
odicals. Yet  his  name  was  not  mentioned.  It  is  only  said 
that  while  living  at  Viatka  he  committed,  in  the. eyes  of  the 
local  administration,  a  great  crime.  When  the  administra- 
tion affirmed  that  the  province  was  prosperous,  he  proved 
by  facts  and  figures  that,  so  far  from  this  being  the  case,  the 
people  were  dying  of  hunger.  The  consequence  was  this 
turbulent  and  disagreeable  man — to  the  administration — 
had  to  submit  to  two  police  visitations ;  and  at  last  they 
found  among  his  papers  the  manuscript  of  an  article  in- 
tended for  the  Press,  and  the  supposed  cause  of  the  writer's 
exile  to  Eastern  Siberia.  After  a  long  journey  on  foot,  in 
the  costume  of  a  convict,  with  a  yellow  ace  on  his  back, 
our  author  arrived  atlrkoutsk.  Here  he  had  the  pleasure  of 
receiving  the  ^l;i;za?s  of  the  Country,  wherein  was  printed 
at  length,  without  either  abbreviations  or  omissions,  the 
article  to  which  his  exile  was  ascribed. 

*'  Let  us  see  now  what  is  the  life  of  a  man  exiled  in  the 
country  of  the  Yakoutcs.  Here  we  have  to  notice,  in  the 
first  place,  the  facilities  for  communication  with  the  Central 
Government.  If  an  exile  living  at  Kolimsk  should  think  fit 
to  petition  Count  Loris  Melikoff  for  a  revocation  of  his  exile, 
the  petition  would  reach  St.  Petersburg  in  a  year.  Another 
year  must  pass  before  the  minister's  inquiries  touching  the 
exile's  conduct  and  political  opinion  can  reach  the  local 
police.  The  third  year  will  be  taken  up  with  the  convey- 
ance of  the  answer  from  Kolimsk  to  St.  Petersburg  that  the 
police  see  no  objection  to  the  petitioner's  liberation.  Final- 
ly, at  the  end  of  the  fourth  year,  the  minister's  order  for  the 


A   DESTROYED    GENERATION.  233 

prisoner's  release  will  reach  Kolimsk.  If  the  exile  has  no  per- 
sonal or  hereditary  property,  and  if  before  his  banishment 
he  lived  by  intellectual  work,  for  which  there  is  no  demand 
in  the  Yakoute  country,  he  will  risk  death  by  famine  at 
least  four  hundred  times  during  the  four  years  while  the 
post  is  making  the  four  Journeys  between  St.  Petersburg 
and  Kolimsk.  The  administration  allows  nobles  by  origin  six 
roubles  a  month  ;  while  apoud  (40  lbs.)  of  black  bread  cost 
at  Verkhoiansk  five  to  six  roubles,  and  at  Kolimsk  nine  rou- 
bles. If  physical  labor,  hard  and  ungrateful  to  men  of  educa- 
tion, or  the  help  of  relatives  and  friends,  or,  lastly,  alms  given 
in  the  name  of  Christ,  save  the  exile  from  death  by  hunger, 
the  terrible  polar  cold  v/ill  give  him  rheumatism  for 
all  his  life,  and  if  he  has  not  strong  lungs  conduct  him  to 
the  tomb.  In  such  towns  as  Verkhoiansk  and  Kolimsk, 
the  former  of  which  has  224  inhabitants  of  both  sexes,  the 
latter  a  few  more,  there  is  no  such  thing  as  civilized  society. 
Nearly  all  are  Yakoutes  or  Eussian  Yakoutes.  Yet  the 
exile  who  is  allowed  to  live  m  any  town  whatever  may  es- 
teem himself  fortunate.  In  the  Yakoute  country  there 
exists  another  sort  of  exile  still  more  cruel  and  barbarous, 
an  exile  of  which  the  Eussian  public  has  no  idea,  and  is  in- 
formed for  the  first  time  by  the  Ronsslcia  Vedomosti.  This 
is  the  exile  by  oidousses — that  is  to  say,  the  placing  of  men 
administratively  exiled  one  by  one  in  Yakoute  yowr/es  (huts), 
distant  from  each  other  several  kilometres.  The  correspond- 
ent of  the  EoiissJcia  Vedomosti  cites  the  letter  of  an  exile 
living  in  one  of  these  oulousses,  which  vividly  describes  the 
terrible  position  of  an  intelligent  man  thrown  pitilessly  into 
the  hut  of  one  of  these  northern  savages. 

'' '  The  Cossacks  who  escorted  me  from  Yakoutsk,'  he 
writes,  '  are  gone,  and  I  am  left  alone  among  the  Yakoutes, 
who  know  not  a  word  of  Eussian.  They  watch  me  continual- 
ly, fearing  that  if  I  go  away  they  will  be  held  responsible  by 
the  administration.     If  you  leave  the  jourta — where  you  are 


234 


RUSSIA    UNDER   THE   TZARS. 


suffocated— for  a  walk,  the  suspicious  Yakoute  follows  you. 
If  you  take  an  axe  to  cut  some  wood  the  timid  Yakoute  tells 
you  by  signs  to  put  it  down  and  return  to  the  joicrta.     You 
return  and  find  sitting  before  the  fire  a  stark-naked  Yakoute 
catching    fleas— a   fine  tableau  !      During  the  winter   the 
Yakoutes  live  with  their  cattle,  often  not  separated  from 
them  by  the  slightest  partition.     The  accumulation  of  ex- 
creta of  every  sort  inside  the  jouria,  the  phenomenal  filth 
and  dirt,  rotting  straw  and  noisome  rags,  the  multitude  of 
insects  on  the  beds,  the  insujiportable  atmosphere,  the  im- 
possibility  of  speaking  a  word  in  Russian— all  this  is  truly 
enough  to  make  a  man  mad.     And  the  food  of  these  Yakou- 
tes it  is  almost  impossible  to  touch.     It  is  always  very  dirty, 
often  putrefying,  and  without  salt.     If  you  are  not  used  to 
food  in  this  state  it  causes  sickness  and  vomiting.      The 
Yakoutes  do  not  know  how  to  make  either  pottery  or  clothes. 
They  have  no  baths,  and  during  the  long  winter  of  eight 
months  you  become  yourself  as  dirty  as  a  Yakoute.     I  cannot 
go  away  anywhere,  much  less  to  a  town,  the  nearest  of  which 
is  120  miles  distant.     I  live  with  the  Yakoutes— turn  and 
turn,  about  six  weeks  in  one  hut,  six  weeks  in  another,  and 
so  on.    I  have  nothing  to  read,  neither  papers  nor  books,  and 
I  know  naugl^t  of  what  is  going  on  in  the  world.' 

''Further  cruelty  cannot  go  except  by  fastening  a  man  to 
the  tail  of  a  v.-ild  horse  and  sending  him  into  the  steppe,  or 
chaining  him  to  a  corpse  and  leaving  him  to  his  fate.  It  is 
hardly  credible  that  without  trial  and  by  a  simple  adminis- 
tion  order  a  man  can  be  submitted  to  sufferings  which 
European  civilization  does  not  inflict  on  the  worst  of  male- 
factors whose  guilt  has  been  pronounced  by  competent 
tribunals.  Still  more  incredible  seems  the  assurance  of  the 
Rousskia  Vedomosti's  correspondent,  that  even  yet  the  lot  of 
exiles  in  the  Yakoute  country  has  been  in  no  way  bettered, 
and  that  even  recently  there  had  arrived  ten  more  adminis- 
trative exiles,  who  for  the  most  part  are  sent  to  the  oulousscs, 
and  that  further  arrivals  were  shortly  expected." 


A  DESTROYED   GENERATIOIT.  235 

One  word  as  to  the  pretended  incredulity  of  the  writer  of 
the  foregoing  article.  It  is  a  common  subterfuge  of  the 
censored  Russian  Press  to  express  thus  quietly  and  indirectly 
its  disapproval  of  the  proceeding  of  Government.  The  Mos- 
coiD  Zemstvo,  as  every  Russian  who  read  the  account  knew, 
did  not  doubt  for  a  moment  either  the  reported  arrival 
of  the  ten  exiles  in  question,  or  the  expected  further  arrival 
mentioned  by  the  correspondent  of  the  Roiisskia  Vedomosti. 

We  have  thus  reached  the  utmost  limits  of  the  official 
system  of  administrative  exile  as  established  in  Russia.  The 
Zemstvo  was  quite  right— it  is  impossible  to  go  further. 
After  the  facts  I  have  exposed  it  is  only  figures  that  can 
speak.     Let  us  then  call  figures  in  evidence. 

The  havoc  v/rought  by  administrative  exile  is  far  greater 
than  that  wrought  by  the  tribunals.  According  to  the  par- 
ticulars set  forth  in  the  almanac  of  the  Narodiiaia  Volia 
for  1883,  there  took  place  betv^eea  April  1879,  when  Russia 
was  put  under  martial  law,  and  the  death  of  Alexander 
(March,  1881),  forty  political  prosecutions,  the  accused 
numbering  215  persons,  of  whom  twenty-eight  were  acquitted 
and  twenty-four  sentenced  to  trifling  punishments.  But 
according  to  documents  in  my  possession  there  were  exiled 
to  divers  places — Eastern  Siberia  included — from  the  three 
satrapies  of  the  south  alone  (Odessa,  Kielf,  and  Kharkoii) 
1,7G7  persons. 

The  number  of  political  prisoners  sentenced  in  the  124 
trials  of  the  two  reigns  was  841,  a  good  third  of  the  penal- 
ties being  little  more  than  nominal.  Official  statistics  relat- 
ing to  administrative  exile  are  not  procurable,  but  when, 
during  the  dictatorship  of  Loris  Melikoff,  the  Government 
desired  to  refute  the  accusation  of  having  exiled  the  half  of 
Russia,  it  admitted  that  in  various  parts  of  the  empire  there 
were  2,873  exiles,  all  of  whom,  with  the  exception  of  271,* 
were  exiled  in  the  short  period  between  1878  and  1880.     If 

*  See  M.  Leroy  Beaulieu's  work  on  Russia,  vol.  ii.  pp.  445,  446. 


236  RUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

we  make  no  allowance  for  the  natural  reluctance  of  the 
Government  to  acknowledge  the  extent  of  its  own  shame, 
if  we  forget  that,  owing  to  the  number  of  authorities  who 
can  issue  decrees  of  administrative  exile  at  their  discretion 
without  giving  information  to  anybody,*  the  Central  Govern- 
ment itself  does  not  know  the  number  of  its  victims — if, 
ignoring  all  this,  we  reckon  these  victims  at  about  three 
thousand,  the  true  number  exiled  in  1880,  we  should 
double  this  rate  for  each  of  the  five  years  of  relentless  per- 
secution which  followed.  In  assuming  that  durins:  the  two 
reigns  the  totals  range  from  six  to  eight  thousand,  we  shall 
not  be  exceedmg  the  reality.  According  to  information 
received  in  the  office  of  the  Narodnaia  Volia,  Mr.  Tichori- 
moff  computed  the  number  of  arrests  made  in  the  first  half 
of  1883  at  8,157,  and  in  Russia  arrests,  nine  times  out  of  ten, 
are  followed  by  exile,  or  worse. 

But  we  need  not  dwell  on  the  statistics  of  punishment.  A 
thousand  exiles  more  or  less  makes  little  difference.  The 
great  fact  is  that  in  a  country  so  poor  in  intellectual  strength 
as  Russia,  all  that  is  most  noble,  generous,  and  intelligent  is 
buried  with  these  six  or  eight  thousand  exiles.  All  her  vi- 
tal forces  are  in  that  great  crowd,  and  if  the  number  be  not 
twelve  or  sixteen  thousand,  it  is  because  the  nation  is  un- 
able to  furnish  so  many. 

The  reader  has  seen  what  are  the  motives  deemed  by  the 
Government  sufficient  to  justify  a  man's  exile.  It  is  no  ex- 
aggeration to  say  that  the  spies  and  collaborateurs  of  Count 
Tolstoi  alone  can  count  on  immunity  from  this  fate.  To 
merit  exile  it  is  not  necessary  to  be  a  revolutionist;  it  is 
sufficient  not  to  approve  fully  and  entirely  the  policy  and 
proceedings  of  the  Government.  Under  conditions  such  as 
these  an  honest  and  intellectual  man  is  more  likely  to  bo 
exiled  than  to  escape. 

Exile  in  any  of  its  forms — whether  banishment  amongthe 

*  See  M.  Leroy  Beaulieu's  work  on  Russia,  vol.  ii.  pp.  4,45,  44iJ. 


A   DESTROYED   GENERATION.  237 

Yakoutes  or  exile  in  the  northern  proyinces — means,  with 
few  exceptions,  complete  ruin  to  the  victim  and  the  utter 
destruction  of  his  future.  For  a  mature  man,  having  some 
profession  or  occupation — a  scientist  or  writer  of  reputation 
— exile  is  necessarily  a  great  hardship,  involving  sacrifice  of 
comfort,  destruction  of  his  home,  and  loss  of  work.  Yet  if 
he  has  energy  and  strength  of  character,  and  does  not  perish 
of  drink  or  privation,  he  may  possibly  survive.  But  for  a 
young  man,  who  is  generally  a  scholar,  who  has  not  yet  ac- 
quired a  profession,  or  reached  the  maturity  of  his  powers, 
exile  is  simply  fatal.  Even  if  he  do  not  perish  physically, 
his  moral  ruin  is  inevitable,  and  the  young  alone  form  nine- 
tenths  of  our  exiles,  and  are  treated  with  the  greatest  rigor, 
Eevocatious,  moreover,  are  rare,  and  generally  only  granted 
in  cases  of  "  misunderstandings."  And  if  among  political 
exiles  there  be  a  few  who,  after  a  few  years'  detention,  are 
reprieved  through  some  fortunate  chance,  or  by  the  help  of 
influential  friends— without  being  obliged  to  purchase  their 
liberty  by  the  cowardly  hypocrisy  of  a  feigned  repentance— 
the  suspicion  pursues  them  from  the  very  moment  of  their 
return  to  active  life.  On  the  least  occasion  they  are  struck 
once  more — this  time  forever. 

How  many  are  the  lives  this  exile  has  ruined  ! 

The  despotism  of  Nicolas  crushed  full-grown  men.  The 
despotism  of  the  two  Alexanders  did  not  give  them  time  to 
grow  up.  They  threw  themselves  on  immature  generations, 
on  the  grass  hardly  out  of  the  ground,  to  devour  it  in  all 
its  tenderness.  To  what  other  cause  can  we  look  for  the 
desperate  sterility  of  modern  Russia  in  every  branch  of  in- 
tellectual work  ?  Our  contemporary  literature,  it  is  true, 
boasts  of  great  writers— geniuses  even— worthy  of  the  high- 
est place  in  the  most  brilliant  age  of  our  country's  literary 
development.  But  these  are  all  men  whose  active  work 
dates  from  the  period  of  1840.  The  romance  writer,  Leon 
Tolstoi,   is  fifty-eight  ;  the    satirist,    Schedrin   (Saltykoff) 


238  RUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

sixty-one ;  Goutcharoff,  seventy-three ;  Tourgneneff  and 
Dostorevsky,  both  recently  deceased,  were  born  in  IS  18. 
Even  writers  of  the  second  rank,  such  as  Oushensky  in  IcUcs 
left  res,  Mikenlovsky  in  criticism,  belong  to  the  generation 
which,  beginning  life  in  1860,  was  far  less  harassed  than  its 
successors.  The  new  generation  produces  nothing,  absolutely 
nothing.  Despotism  has  stricken  with  sterility  the  high 
hopes  to  which  the  splendid  awakening  of  the  first  half  of 
the  century  gave  birth.  Mediocrity  reigns  supreme.  "We 
have  not  a  single  genius  ;  not  one  man  of  letters  has  shown 
himself  a  worthy  inheritor  of  the  traditions  of  our  young 
and  vigorous  literature.  As  in  letters,  so  it  is  in  public  life. 
All  the  leaders  of  our  Zemstvo,  modest  as  are  their  functions, 
belong  to  an  older  generation.  The  living  forces  of  later 
generations  has  been  buried  by  the  Government  in  Siberian 
snows  and  Esquimaux  villages.  It  is  worse  than  the  pest.  A 
pest  comes  and  goes  ;  the  Government  has  oppressed  the 
country  for  twenty  years,  and  may  go  on  oppressing  it  for 
who  knows  how  many  years  longer.  The  pest  kills  indis- 
criminately, but  the  present  regime  chooses  its  victims  from 
the  flower  of  the  nation,  taking  all  on  whom  depend  its 
future  and  its  glory.  It  is  not  a  political  party  whom  they 
crush,  it  is  a  nation  of  a  hundred  millions  whom  they  stifle. 
This  is  wliat  is  done  in  Russia  under  the  Tzars  ;  this  is 
the  price  at  which  the  Government  buys  its  miserable  exist- 
ence. 


CHAPTEE    XXV. 


HIGHER    EDUCATION. 


At  length  we  are  out  of  tlie  darkness  and  away  from  the 
abysmal  depths  in  which  despotism  immures  its  countless  vic- 
tims. We  have  finished  oiu*  excvirsions  into  that  nether  world 
where  we  heard  at  each  step  cries  of  despair  and  impotent 
rage — the  death-rattle  of  the  moribund,  and  the  maniacal 
laugh  of  the  insane.  We  are  on  the  surface  of  the  earth  and 
in  the  full  light  of  day.  True,  the  revelations  we  have  still  to 
make  are  not  gay  ;  the  Russia  of  to-day  is  a  very  unhappy 
country,  dear  reader.  But  we  shall  have  no  more  to  do  with 
wasted  lives  and  blood-curdling  horrors.  We  are  about  to 
speak  of  the  inanimate,  of  institutions  which  do  not  suffer, 
although  they  are  falling  in  pieces.  After  crushing  the  living 
— the  man,  the  artisan — the  Government  natiu'ally  and  inevi- 
tably attacks  the  institutions  which  are  the  framework  and  sup- 
port of  human  society. 

AVe  propose,  then,  to  describe  briefly  the  struggle  of  the 
'jrovernment  with  the  most  vital  institutions  of  the  country, 
institutions  to  which,  because  they  favor  the  cultivation  of  the 
mind,  it  is  instinctively  hostile — the  Schools,  the  Zemstvo,  and 
the  Press.  The  policy  pursued  by  the  autocracy  towards  these 
thi-ee  cardinal  elements  of  national  well-being  wdll  show  us 
what  part  it  plays  generally  in  the  life  of  the  State. 


240  EL'SSIA   UNDER   THE   TZAK3. 

I  have  already  had  an  opportunity  of  lading  bare  this  policy 
to  the  English  iDublic.  The  five  chapters  on  Education  and  the 
Press,  -which  form  the  mam  part  of  this  section  of  m^'  book, 
have  been  pubhshed  as  special  articles  in  the  most  influential  of 
European  journals  (April  and  September,  183-1).  I  take  tliis 
opportunity  of  thanking  the  Times  for  its  appreciative  com- 
ments on  the  articles  in  question,  and  the  proprietors  for  theii- 
permission  to  reproduce  them  in  the  present  work.  I  should 
have  liked  to  enrich  these  chapters  Vv^ith  examples  and  citations 
drawn  from  that  ocean  of  sadness  which  Russia  now  pi-esents 
to  us.  But  this  the  limits  of  my  space  forbid,  and  with  the  ex- 
ception of  some  slight  changes  of  phi^ase  and  a  few  interpola- 
tions they  appear  in  their  original  form. 

It  is  well  to  obsei-ve  at  the  outset  that  Russian  universities 
occupy  a  position  altogether  peculiar  and  exceptional.  In 
other  countries  universities  arc  places  of  learning  and  nothing 
more.  They  are  frequented  by  young  men,  all  of  whom,  save 
the  idle,  are  busied  with  their  studies,  and  whose  chief  if  not 
the  sole  desire  is  to  pass  their  examinations  and  obtain  a  de- 
gree. Though  they  may  take  an  interest  in  politics  they  are 
not  pohticians  ;  and  if  they  express  sympathy  with  this  or  that 
idea,  even  albeit  the  idea  be  extreme,  nobody  is  either  sur- 
prised or  alarmed,  the  fact  being  regarded  as  evidence  of  a 
healthy  vitality',  fraught  with  hope  for  the  future  of  the  na- 
tion. 

In  Russia  it  is  altogether  different.  There  the  universities 
and  the  pubhc  schools  are  the  foci  of  the  most  intense  and  ar- 
dent political  hfe,  and  in  the  higher  spheres  of  the  Imi^erial 
administration  the  name  of  student  is  identified,  not  with 
something  young,  noble,  and  aspiring,  but  with  a  dark  and 
dangerous  power  inimical  to  the  laws  and  institutions  of  the 
land.  And  this  impression  is  so  far  justified  that,  as  recent 
pohtical  trials  abundantly  prove,  tlie  great  majority  of  the  young 
men  who  throw  themselves  into  the  struggle  for  liberty  ai'e 
under  thirty,  and  belong  either  to  the  class  of  undergi'aduates 
or  to  those  whose  academic  honors   are  newly  won.      This, 


HIGHER    EDUCATION. 


241 


tlioiigh  it  may  surprise  Englishmen,  is  neither  unprecedented 
nor  unnatural.  When  a  government  in  possession  of  despotic 
power  punishes  as  a  crime  the  least  show  of  opposition  to  its 
wiU,  nearly  aU  whom  age  has  made  cautious  or  wealth  selfish, 
or  who  have  given  hostages  to  fortimes,  shun  the  strife.  It  is 
then  that  the  leaders  of  the  forlorn  hope  turn  to  the  young, 
who,  though  th^y  may  lack  knowledge  and  experience,  are 
rarely  wanting  either  in  courage  or  devotion.  It  was  thus  in 
Italy  at  the  time  of  the  ]\Iazzinian  conspiracies  ;  in  Spain  at 
the  time  of  Riego  and  Queroga  ;  in  Germany  at  the  time 
of  the  Tugendbund,  and  again  about  the  middle  of  this  cen- 
tui-y.  If  the  ti-ansfer  of  the  centre  of  poHtical  gravity  to  the 
youug  is  more  mai-ked  in  Russia  than  it  has  been  elsewhere,  it 
is  that  the  determining  causes  have  been  more  powerful  in 
their  action  and  more  prolonged  in  their  duration.  One  of 
the  most  potent  of  these  causes  is  the  conduct  of  the  Govern- 
ment, whose  ill-judged  measures  of  repression  exasperate  the 
youth  of  our  universities  and  convert  latent  discontent  into 
flat  rebellion.  That  this  is  no  mere  assertion,  the  facts  I  am 
about  to  adduce  will  sufficiently  j^rove. 

Towards  the  end  of  1878  there  occurred  among  the  students 
of  St.  Petersburg  University  some  so-called  "  disorders."  They 
were  not  serious,  and  in  ordinary  circumstances  would  have 
been  punished  by  sending  a  few  score  of  3'oung  fellows  to  waste 
the  rest  of  their  lives  in  some  obscure  village  of  the  far  norih, 
and  neither  the  IVIinistry  nor  the  University  Council  woxild 
have  given  the  matter  furiher  thought.  But  this  time  there 
was  a  new  departure.  After  passing  judgment  on  the  rioters, 
the  Council  appointed  a  commission  of  twelve,  among  whom 
were  some  of  the  best  professors  of  the  university,  to  institute 
a  searching  iuquu-y  into  the  cause  of  these  troubles,  which  re- 
cur with  periodical  regularity.  After  discussing  the  question 
at  length,  the  Commission  prepared  a  draft  petition  for  pres- 
entation to  the  Emperor,  demanding  his  sanction  for  a  thorough 
refoi-m  of  the  discipUnary  regulations  of  the  university.  This 
proposal  did  not,  however,  find  favor  with  the  Council,  and  in- 
11 


242  KUSSIA   UNDER   THE   TZAKS. 

Btead  of  it  they  drew  up  a  report  to  the  ^Ministry  "on  the 
causes  of  the  disorders  and  the  best  means  of  preventing  a  re- 
newal thereof." 

The  document,  which  is  of  the  highest  interest,  was  pub- 
lished neither  in  the  annual  report  of  the  university  nor  by 
the  Press.  Any  journal  which  had  dared  even  to  refer  to  it 
would  have  been  promptly  suspended.  But  a  few  copies  were 
printed  in  the  clandestine  office  of  the  Zemlia  i  Folia,  and 
those  of  them  that  stiU  exist  are  prized  as  rare  bibliographic 
curiosities.  From  a  cojjy  in  my  possession  I  make  the  follow- 
ing extracts,  which,  as  wiU  be  seen,  give  a  vivid  description  of 
the  rule  under  which  the  students  are  compelled  to  live,  and 
the  irritating  treatment  to  which  they  are  expected  to  submit. 

"  Of  all  departments  of  the  administration  the  one  with 
which  students  come  most  in  contact  is  the  Department  of 
Police.  By  its  proceedings  they  naturally  form  theu*  oi^inion 
of  the  character  of  the  Government.  It  is,  therefore,  in  their 
interest,  and  that  of  the  State,  that  the  conduct  of  the  police 
towards  the  members  of  our  universities  should  be  kind,  con- 
siderate, and  reasonable.  But  what  we  see  is  precisely  the 
reverse.  For  most  young  men  intercourse  with  comrades  and 
friends  is  an  absolute  necessity.  To  satisfy  this  necessity  there 
exists  in  all  other  European  universities  (as  also  in  those  of 
Finland  and  the  Baltic  provinces,  which  enjoy  considerable 
local  liberties)  special  institutions,  such  as  clubs,  corporations, 
and  unions.  At  St.  Petersbm'g  there  is  nothing  of  the  soi-t, 
although  the  gi'eat  majority  of  the  students,  being  from  the 
country,  have  no  friends  in  the  city  with  whom  they  can 
associate.  Private  reunions  might,  in  some  measure,  make  up 
for  deprivation  of  other  opportunities  of  social  intercourse 
were  it  not  that  police  interference  renders  the  one  almost  as 
impossible  as  the  other.  A  meeting  of  several  students  in  the 
room  of  one  of  theii-  number  draws  immediate  attention  and 
gives  rise  to  exaggerated  fears.  The  porters,  and  even  the 
proprietors  of  the  rooms,  are  bound  on  their  peril  to  give 
prompt  information  of  the  fact  to  the  pohce,  by  whom  such 


HIGHER    EDUCATION.  213 

meetings  are  often  dispersed.  Besides  being  practically  for- 
bidden to  enjoy  each  other's  society,  students,  even  in  the 
privacy  of  their  own  chambers,  ai'e  not  free  from  annoyance. 
Although  they  may  lead  studious  lives,  meddle  with  nobody, 
and  receive  and  make  few  visits,  they  are  none  the  less  sub- 
mitted to  a  rigorous  oversight.  (The  professors  observe,  not 
without  mahce,  that  exeryhody  is  under  pohce  supervision. 
Ever}i,hing,  however,  depends  on  the  form  it  takes  and  the 
extent  to  which  it  is  exercised  ;  and  the  supervision  exercised 
over  the  students,  ceasing  to  be  a  measm-e  of  pubhc  security, 
became  an  interference  with  their  private  life.) 

"  '  How  does  he  pass  his  time  ? '  '  Whom  does  he  associate 
with  ? '  '  ^Miat  time  does  he  generally  come  home  ? '  '  What 
does  he  read  ?  '  '  What  does  he  write  ? '  are  among  the  ques- 
tions put  by  the  pohce  to  porters  and  lodging-house  keepers, 
people  generally  of  little  or  no  education,  who  carry  out  their 
instructions  with  scant  regard  for  the  feelings  of  impression- 
able youth."  (Eead  between  the  lines  this  means  that  dming 
the  absence  of  the  students  their  books  and  papers  are  over- 
hauled, and  anything  in  them  that  may  appear  suspicious 
brought  under  the  notice  of  the  poUce.) 

This  is  the  testimony  of  the  heads  of  the  University  of 
St.  Petersburg,  speaking  in  confidence  to  the  Ministers  of  the 
Tzar.*     But  these  worthy  gentlemen  told  only  half  the  truth. 

*  Shortly  after  the  appearance  of  the  article  which  forms  the  substance 
of  this  chapter  in  The  Times,  Mr.  Katkoff,  in  a  warm  and  eloquent 
lender  in  the  Mosow  Oa-ette,  roundly  accused  me  of  having  invented 
both  the  commission  of  professors  and  their  report ;  neither  of  whieli, 
according  to  him,  ever  existed.  As  the  facts  are  rather  of  old  date  and 
almost  forgotten  by  the  public,  and  as  the  charge  may  be  repeated,  I  am 
constrained,  in  my  own  justitioation,  to  mention  certain  details  and  to 
give  the  names  which,  in  the  first  instance,  I  omitted.  The  commission 
nominated  by  the  University  is  no  more  a  myth  than  the  twelve  pro- 
fessors of  whom  it  was  composed,  and  who  took  part  in  its  proceedings. 
MM.  BeketoH,  Famiuzine,  Eutleroll,  Setchcnolf,  Grudovsky,  Serguc- 
vitch,  Taganzeff,  VladislavleU,  Miller,  Lamansky,  Khoolson,  and  Gotr 


24:4  KU88IA    UNDER    THE   TZAKS. 

Tlieir  remai-ks  apply  only  to  the  treatment  of  students  outside 
the  university.  A  natural  feeling  of  delicacy  restrained  them 
from  dwelling  on  the  things  that  are  done  within  the  waUs 
AV'here  leai-ning  and  science  should  reign  supreme.  The  in- 
terior oversight  of  the  undergraduate  is  entrusted  to  a  so-caUed 
"Inspection,"  composed  of  an  inspector,  appointed  by  the 
Ministry,  several  sub-inspectors,  and  a  number  of  agents.  The 
students,  liie  the  professors,  Uve  outside  the  precfncts'of  the 
University,  and  meet  in  the  aulas  only  at  appointed  hours,  and 
for  the  sole  object  of  attending  the  lectures  that  are  there 
given.  The  professors  are  quite  competent  to  maintain  order 
in  the  schools. 

And  what  good  purpose  can  be  sen-ed  by  submitting  this 
noble  and  pacific  activity  to  special  police  oversight?  a's  weU 
organize  a  special  force  of  spuiTed  and  helmeted  sacristans  to 
supei-A'ise  the  faithful  when  tliey  meet  for  Divine  worship.  In 
Eussia,  however,  it  is  precisely  because  universities  ai-e  labora- 
tories of  thought  and  ideas  in  constant  action,  that  their  super- 
vision is  deemed,  above  aU  things,  desirable  ;  and  that  inspec- 
tion in  this  element  of  theii'  domestic  Hfe  is  kept  most  in  view. 
Having  nothing  to  do  with  study,  in  no  wise  subject  either  to 
the  management  or  to  the  University  Council,  depending  only 
on  the  high  poHce,  and  the  IMinistry,  this  heterogeneous  ele- 
ment, like  a  foreign  body  introduced  into  an  organism,  de- 
ranges aU  the  natural  functions  of  a  scliolastic  institution. 

Tlu-ee-foui-ths  of  the  so-caUed  "university  disorders"  ai'e 
caused  by  the  meddlings  of  the  divers  agents  of  the  inspection. 
The  inspector— and  herein  Hes  the  chief  cause  of  the  universal 
detestation  in  which  he  is  held— is  a  delegate  of  the  general 
police;  an  Argus  sent  into  the  enemy's  camp  to  sow  the  seeds 
of  sedition.     A  word  whispered  in  the  ear  may  entail  conse- 


stunsky.  I  hope  these  gentlemen,  most  of  whom  are  still  professors  in 
St.  Petersburg  University,  ai-e  in  good  hcaUh.  Their  report  was  drawn 
up  on  December  14,  1878.  It  is  not  very  long  since.  They  doubtless 
remember  the  circumstance,  and  the  question  can  easily  be  put. 


HIGHER    EDUCATION.  245 

quences  the  reverse  of  agreeable,  not  alone  on  an  vinfortunate 
student  but  on  a  college  don  of  high  rank. 

These  hated  spies,  moreover,  enjoy  the  most  extensive  pow- 
ers. An  inspector  can  do  almost  anything.  "With  the  ajopro- 
bation  of  the  Curator,  that  is  to  say,  of  the  ]\Iinister  who  di- 
rects his  proceedings,  he  may  expel  a  student  for  one  or  two 
yeai's,  or  forever,  without  any  sort  of  inquiry  or  trial.  The 
same  f\inctionary  controls  the  scholarships  and  bursaries,  so 
numerous  in  Russian  superior  schools,  and  by  his  mere  veto 
can  deny  them  to  the  destined  recipients  by  classing  the  latter 
as  neblagonadejen — a  word  for  which  the  English  language  has 
no  equivalent,  but  which  means  that,  albeit  the  victims  are  not 
yet  under  suspicion  they  cannot  be  regarded  as  altogether  im- 
peccable. The  inspector  wields  another  power.  By  a  stroke 
of  the  pen  he  can  deprive  a  host  of  students  of  the  means  of 
Hvelihood  in  forbidding  them  to  give  private  lessons.  Many  of 
the  students  are  veiy  poor,  and  depend  on  work  of  this  sort 
for  their  daily  bread.  No  one  can  give  private  lessons  without 
police  authorization,  and  authorization  is  never  given  without 
the  approval  of  the  inspector,  and  then  only  for  a  limited  time. 
The  inspector  may,  at  his  own  good  pleasure,  prevent  the  re- 
newal of  the  authorization,  or  even  cancel  it  before  the  expira- 
tion of  the  teiTQ  for  which  it  was  granted.  This  officer,  and 
each  of  his  agents,  is  also  empowered  to  punish  refractory  stu- 
dents by  imprisonment  in  a  dungeon  for  any  time  not  exceed- 
ing seven  days.  He  may  reprimand  them  for  coming  late  to  a 
lecture,  for  wearing  clothes  he  does  not  like,  for  the  cut  of  their 
hair  and  the  pose  of  their  hats,  and  otherwise  torment  them 
with  any  puerihties  it  may  please  him  to  inflict. 

n. 

These  petty  tyrannies  are,  if  possible,  more  keenly  felt  and 
more  bitterly  resented  by  Russian  students  than  they  wovild  be 
by  students  of  other  nationalities.  Our  young  men  are  pre- 
cocious.    The   sufferings  they  witness  and  the   persecutions 


246  KU3SIA    UNDER   THE   TZAKS. 

they  endure  biing  them  rapitUy  to  maturity.     A  Russian  stu- 
dent unites  tlie  dignity  of  manhood  with  the  ardor  of  youth, 
and  feels  the  outrages  to  which  he  is  exposed,  all  the  more 
acutely  that  he  is  powerless  to  resist  them.     The  students  be- 
long for  the  most  part  to  the  lower  nobility  and  the  lower 
clergy,  both  of  whom  are  poor.     AH  arc  familiar  with  the  lit- 
eratiu-e  of  Liberalism  and  free-thought,  and  the  great  majority 
are  imbued  with  democratic  and  anti-despotic  ideas.     As  they 
grow  older  these  ideas  become  intensified  by  the  conditions 
under  which  they  live.     They  are  compelled  either  to  serve  a 
Government  Avliich  they  detest  or  betake  themselves  to  callings 
for  which  they  may  have  no  aptitude.     Russia  has  absolutely 
no  future  for  young  men  of  noble  natui-es  and  generous  aspi- 
ration.    Unless  they  consent  to  don  the  livery  of  the  Tzar,  or 
become  members  of  a  coiTupt  bureaucracy,  they  can  neither 
serve  their  country  nor  take  paii  in  j^ubHc  affairs.     In  these 
circumstances  it  is  no  wonder  that  seditious  notions  are  ram- 
pant among  the  students  of  Russian  universities,  and  that  they 
should  be  ever  ready  to  take  part  in  demonstrations  against 
authority  in  general,  and,  above  all,  against  their  enemies  of 
the  poUce — demonstrations  which  in  official  phraseology  be- 
come "  disorders "  and    "  troubles,"  and   are  ascribed  to  the 
machinations  of  the  revolutionary  party.     The  charge  is  false; 
for  the  revolutionary  party  gains  nothing  by  this  warfare.     On 
the  contraiy,  they  are  weakened;  because  those  who  are  lost 
to  the  cause  by  a  university  squabble  might  have  used  their 
energies  to  better  pui'pose  in  a  truly  revolutionary  struggle. 
The  disorders  in  our  universities  ai*e  entirely  spontaneous; 
they  have  no  other  cause  than  latent  discontent,  which,  always 
accumulating,  is  ever  ready  to  vent  itself  in  a  "  manifestation." 
A  student  is  unjustly  expelled  from  the  university,  another  is 
arbitrarily  deprived  of  his  bursary,  an  unj^opular  professor  re- 
quests the  inspectors  to  force  undergi'aduates  into  his  lectvire- 
room.     The  news  sjireads,  the  students  are  excited,  they  gather 
in  twos  and  threes  to  discuss  the  matter,  and,  finally,  a  general 
meeting  is  called  to  protest  against  the  action  of  the  authori- 


HIGHEE   EDUCATION.  247 

ties,  and  demand  reparation  for  the  injustice  tliey  have  com- 
mitted. The  rector  appeal's  and  declines  to  make  any  explana- 
tion; the  inspector  orders  the  meeting  to  disperse  foiihwith. 
The  students,  now  in  a  white  heat  of  indignation,  refuse  to 
obey;  whereupon  the  inspector,  who  had  anticipated  this  con- 
tingency, calls  into  the  room  a  force  of  gendannes,  Cossacksj 
and  soldiers,  and  the  meeting  is  dissolved  by  main  force. 

An  incident  that  occuiTed  at  Moscow  in  December,  1880, 
affords  an  apt  illustration  of  the  trivial  causes  from  Avhich  dis- 
orders sometimes  arise.  Professor  Zemoff  was  giving  a 
lecture  on  anatomy  to  an  attentive  audience,  when  all  at  once 
a  loud  and  unusual  noise  was  heard  in  the  next  room,  and 
most  of  the  students  ran  out  to  see  what  had  happened. 
Nothing  pai-ticular  had  happened,  but  the  professor,  annoyed 
by  the  interruption  of  his  lectui'e,  made  a  complaint  to  the 
authorities.  The  next  day  it  was  stated  that  the  complaint  had 
led  to  the  expulsion  of  several  members  of  the  anatomy  class. 
A  punishment  so  severe  for  an  offence  so  venial  kindled  gener- 
al indignation.  A  meeting  was  called  and  a  resolution  passed 
calling  upon  the  rector  for  an  explanation.  But  instead  of  the 
rector  came  the  chief  of  the  Moscow  jjolice,  followed  by  a 
great  ai'ray  of  gendannes,  Cossacks,  and  infantr}^,  who  ordered 
the  meeting  to  disperse.  The  young  fellows  were  now  greatly 
excited,  and,  though  they  would  have  listened  to  reason,  re- 
fused obedience  to  the  behests  of  brute  force.  On  this  the 
aula  was  surrounded  by  the  soldiers,  aU  the  issues  were  beset, 
the  students,  to  the  number  of  four  hundred,  were  taken 
prisoners,  and  amid  a  square  of  bayonets  marched  off  to 
jail. 

Affaii's  of  this  sort  do  not  always  end  with  simple  arrests. 
At  the  least  show  of  resistance  the  foot  soldiers  make  free  use 
of  the  butt-ends  of  their  muskets,  the  Cossacks  ply  their 
whips,  the  faces  of  the  students  stream  with  blood,  some  are 
thrown  wounded  to  the  gi'ound,  and  there  ensues  a  teri'ible 
scene  of  armed  violence  and  unavailing  resistance.  It  hap- 
pened   thus   at    Kharkoff,  in    November,    1878,    when  some 


248  KUSSIA   UNDEK   THE  TZAE8. 

troubles  arose  from  a  mere  misunderstanding  between  a  pro- 
fessor at  the  Veterinary  College  and  one  of  his  classes — a  mis- 
understanding which  a  few  words  of  explanation  would  have 
sufficed  to  remove.  It  was  thus  at  Moscow  and  St.  Petei-s- 
bui-g  dui'ing  the  disorders  of  1861,  1863,  and  1866  ;  and  in 
certain  cii'cumstances  the  law  sanctions  even  grosser  outrages. 
In  1878  an  enactment,  the  cruelty  of  which  it  is  impossible  to 
exaggerate,  was  promulgated.  "  Considering,"  it  ran,  "  the 
frequency  of  students'  meetings  in  the  universities  and  jDublic 
schools,  the  law  concerning  seditious  gatherings  in  the  streets 
and  other  i^ublic  places  is  applied  to  all  buildings  and  estab- 
lishments used  as  colleges  and  superior  schools."  Thus  all 
students  in  Russia  are  placed  permanently  under  martial  law. 
A  meeting  or  group  of  undergraduates,  after  being  sum- 
moned three  times  to  disperse,  may  be  shot  down  as  if  they 
were  armed  rebels. 

Hapi^ily,  however,  this  monstrous  law  has  not  yet  been  ap- 
plied in  all  its  rigor.  The  police  still  hmit  their  repressive 
measui'es  to  beating  and  imprisoning  the  students  who  con- 
travene their  commands  or  otherwise  incur  their  displeasure. 
But  the  students,  so  far  from  being  grateful  for  this  moder- 
ation, ai'e  always  in  a  state  of  simmering  revolt,  and  lose  no 
opiDortunity  of  i^rotesting,  by  deed  and  word,  against  the 
tyrannical  proceedings  of  the  agents  of  the  law.  There  is, 
moreover,  a  strong  fellow-feeling  among  them,  and  "dis- 
orders "  at  one  university  are  often  a  signal  for  disorders  at 
half  a  dozen  other  seats  of  learning.  The  troubles  which 
began  at  the  end  of  1882  extended  over  nearly  the  whole  of 
scholastic  Eussia.  They  began  in  the  far  east,  at  the  Uni- 
versity of  Kazan.  Firsoff,  the  rector,  deprived  a  young  man 
named  Voronzoff  of  his  biu-sai-y,  a  thing  which  he  had  no 
right  to  do,  the  bursaiy  having  been  granted  by  the  Zemstvo 
of  Voronzoff's  native  province.  Voronzoff  was  so  exasper- 
ated that  he  publicly  boxed  the  rector's  ears.  In  ordinary 
circumstances,  and  in  a  well-ordered  university,  an  outrage  so 
gross  would  have  provoked  general  indignation,  and  the  stu- 


HIGHER   EDUCATION.  249 

clents  themselves  would  have  punished  the  offender.  But  the 
rector's  despotic  rule  had  rendered  him  so  unjDopular  that  on 
the  day  of  Voronzoff's  expulsion  the  students — some  six  hiui- 
di'ed  in  number — broke  open  the  assembly  room,  and  held  a 
tumultuous  meeting,  whereupon  the  Pro-rector  Voulitch  hur- 
ried to  the  spot  and  ordered  the  assembly  .to  disperse.  Nobody 
listened  to  him.  Two  of  the  students  made  speeches  against 
Fii'soff  and  defended  Voronzoff.  A  foimer  student  of  Moscow 
University,  without  giving  heed  to  the  presence  of  Voulitch, 
spoke  in  the  most  violent  terms  against  the  curator,  the  rector, 
and  the  professors  generally.  In  the  end  the  meeting  voted 
and  presented  to  Pro-rector  Voulitch  a  petition  demanding 
Rector  Fii'soff's  immediate  dismissal,  and  the  revocation  of 
Voronzoff 's  expulsion. 

Then,  before  dispersing,  the  students  resolved  to  meet  again 
on  the  following  day.  On  this  the  heads  of  the  university  ap- 
plied to  the  governor  of  the  province  for  the  means  of  restor- 
ing order,  and  the  great  man  promptly  placed  at  their  dis- 
posal several  companies  of  infantry  and  a  large  force  of  police. 
A  few  days  later  it  was  announced  that  complete  tranquillity 
reigned  at  the  University  of  Kazan.  But  the  papers  that 
made  this  announcement  were  forbidden,  under  pain  of  sup- 
pression, to  mention  in  what  manner  the  pacification  was 
broiight  about  —  that  the  rebellious  students  v>'ere  beaten, 
whipped,  thrown  on  the  ground,  dragged  about  by  the  hair  of 
their  heads,  and  many  of  them  hauled  to  prison.  Despite  the 
interdict  laid  on  the  Press,  these  facts  were  quickly  bruited 
about.  On  November  8th  (as  is  set  forth  in  the  official  report) 
hectographic  copies  of  a  letter  from  one  of  the  Kazan  stu- 
dents, giving  a  full  account  of  the  affair,  were  circulated 
among  the  students  of  St.  Petersbui'g,  and  caused  naturally 
a  great  sensation.  On  the  10th  hectographic  circulars  were 
issued  calling  a  general  meeting  of  the  St.  Petersburg  stu- 
dents to  protest  against  the  outrages  inflicted  on  their  com- 
rades of  Kazan.  When  the  students  presented  themselves  at 
the  place  of  meeting,  the  police,  who  appeared  in  force,  or- 
11* 


250  RUSSIA   msDER   THE   TZAE8. 

dered  them  to  disperse,  an  order  which  they  refused  to  obey, 
aiid  while  tlie  poHce  were  still  there  passed  a  vote  of  censure 
on  the  authorities  and  of  sympathy  -wdth  the  students  of 
Kazan.  On  this,  force  was  ordered  to  be  used,  and  280  stu- 
dents were  arrested  and  conducted  to  prison. 

The  next  day  orders  went  forth  for  the  pro\'isional  closing 
of  the  university. 

The  outbreaks  at  St.  Petersburg  and  Kazan  were  speedily 
followed  by  similar  scenes  in  other  university  towns.  On  No- 
vember 15th  there  were  disturbances  at  Kieff,  and  on  the  17th 
and  18th  at  Kharkoff.  At  the  latter  place  they  were  so  serious 
that  the  military  had  to  be  employed  for  their  supj^ression, 
and  many  arrests  were  made.  Almost  at  the  same  time  troubles 
befell  in  the  Juridical  School  of  Yaroslivle,  and  a  few  days 
later  at  the  Forest  School  of  Moscow.  At  all  these  jJaces 
events  followed  in  the  same  order — agitations,  meetings,  forcible 
disj)crsions,  arrests,  and  then  provisional  cessation  of  lectures. 

Disorders  are  of  frequent  occurrence  in  all  the  universities 
and  superior  scholastic  institutions  of  the  empire.  Not  a  ye:ir 
passes  that  several  do  not  come  to  pass  in  different  pai-ts  of 
Eussia.  And  every  one  of  these  outbreaks,  whether  appeased 
by  the  exhoiiations  of  the  professors  or  suppressed  by  Cossack 
whips,  entails  inevitably  the  exjDulsion  of  a  crowd  of  students. 
In  some  cases  fifty  are  expelled,  in  others  one  hundred,  and 
even  more  than  one  hundred.  The  troubles  of  October  and 
November,  1882,  caused  the  expulsion  of  six  hundred.  The 
trilnmal  which  orders  the  expulsions — that  is  to  say,  the  Council 
of  Professors — divides  the  offenders  into  several  categories. 
The  "  leaders  "  and  "  instigators  "  are  condemned  to  perpetual 
expulsion  and  denied  the  right  of  entering  thereafter  any  su- 
perior school  whatever.  Others  ai'e  expelled  for  a  term  varying 
from  twelve  months  to  three  years.  The  lightest  penalty 
awarded  in  these  cases  is  "  sending  away,"  a  sentence  which, 
in  theory  at  least,  does  not  prevent  the  offender  from  entering 
at  once  some  other  university.  In  reality,  however,  there  is 
very  little   difference  between   one    sort  of   punishment  and 


IIIGHEK    EDUCATION.  251 

anotlior.  "The  police,"  says  the  report  of  the  St.  Petershiirg 
professors  which  I  have  ah'cady  cited,  "regard  eveiy  disturb- 
ance that  occurs  in  the  university  as  a  political  movement. 
Every  student  who  may  be  condemned,  even  to  a  slight  pun- 
ishment, becomes  a  political  suspect,  and  to  every  Russian  sus- 
l^ect  there  is  dealt  the  same  measvu-e — exile  by  administrative 
order.  Penalties  inflicted  for  the  merest  breaches  of  scholastic 
discipline  may  be  aggravated  by  administrative  exile,  as  the 
disorders  of  March  18  and  20,  1869,  clearly  showed.  AU  the 
students  "  sent  away  "  for  a  yeai',  as  well  as  those  definitively 
expelled,  were  immediately  exiled,  and  after  the  late  distiu'b- 
ances  (December,  1878)  the  rector  was  asked  to  furnish  the 
Chief  of  Police  of  the  quarter  with  the  names  of  all  students 
who  had  ever  appeared  before  the  university  tribunal,  even 
though  they  might  not  have  been  punished  (in  order  that  they, 
too,  might  be  exiled). 

If  in  other  parts  of  Russia  the  police  are  less  severe  than  in 
St.  Petersbm-g,  students  compromised  by  participation  in  iini- 
versity  disorders  are  none  the  less  dealt  with  in  a  way  which 
renders  impossible  the  resumption  of  their  professional  studies. 

The  minister  himself  undertakes  the  task  of  tracking  and 
marking  them.  Here  is  an  instance  in  point :  In  a  weekly 
jom-nal,  published  at  St.  Petersbm-g,  there  appeared,  on  No- 
vember 9,  1881,  under  the  heading  "  An  Incomprehensible 
Decision  of  the  University  Council  of  Kieff,"  a  communication 
to  the  following  effect — 


^t) 


"The  students  provisionally  expelled  (rusticated)  from  Moscow  Uni- 
versity applied  for  admission  to  the  University  of  Kieff.  But  the  Coun- 
cil, after  taking  the  matter  into  consideration,  refused  to  receive  them. 
This  was  virtually  increasmg,  on  their  own  motion,  the  punishment 
originally  inflicted  on  tlie  postulants.  It  was  denying  a  right  reserved 
to  them  by  their  judges." 

And  the  Press  generally  blamed  the  Council  for  displaying  a 
severity  which  was  qualified  as  excessive  and  inexplicable.  The 
explanation,  however,  was  very  simple.     The  minister,  by  a 


252  RUSSIA   UNDER   THE   TZARS. 

special  cii'cular,  had  forbidden  all  other  universities  to  receive 
the  expelled  students  from  IMoscow.  This  the  papers  knew 
better  than  anybody  else,  and  these  diatribes  had  no  other  end 
than  to  provoke  the  University  of  KiefE  into  an  exposure  of 
the  double  dealing  of  the  Government,  an  object  which,  it  is 
hardly  necessary  to  say,  was  not  realized.  Similar  circular's 
are  almost  invariably  sent  out  after  university  disturbances 
wherever  they  may  happen  to  occur. 

The  struggle  between  the  jNIinistry  and  the  universities  is  far 
from  being  limited  to  disorders  and  their  results.  These  events, 
after  all,  are  exceptional ;  they  occur  at  comparatively  long  in- 
tem-als,  and  are  separated  from  each  other  by  periods  of  api^ar- 
ent  calm.  But  quietness  brings  the  students  no  immunity  from 
espionage  and  persecution.  The  police  never  cease  making 
arrests  ;  when  clouds  darken  the  political  sky,  and  the  Govern- 
ment, with  or  without  reason,  take  alarm,  they  arrest  multitudes. 
At  these  times  students  ai'e  naturally  the  greatest  sufferers,  for, 
as  I  have  already  shown,  oiu'  Russian  youths  are  nearly  all 
eager  politicians  and  potential  revolutionists.  A  fraction  of  the 
aiTested  are  condemned,  even  after  trial,  to  divers  penalties. 
Some  eighty  per  cent,  are  exiled,  without  trial,  to  Siberia  or  to 
one  of  the  northern  provinces  ;  a  few,  after  a  short  detention, 
are  allowed  to  return  to  their  homes.  A  proportion  of  those 
sentenced  to  a  term  of  imprisonment  may  also  be  allowed  to 
resume  their  occupations,  instead  of  being  exiled  by  adminis- 
trative order.  But  mercy  is  a  quality  unkno-mi  to  the  Russian 
police  ;  they  take  back  with  one  hand  what  they  give  with  the 
other.  On  October  15,  1881,  a  law  was  made  instituting  a 
sort  of  double  judgment  and  twofold  penalty  for  students  com- 
ing under  the  categories  last  named.  Ai'ticles  2  and  3  of  this 
law  direct  university  councils  to  act  as  special  tribunals  for  the 
trial  of  students  who  have  been  tried  and  acquitted  by  the 
ordinary  courts,  or  who  have  expiated  their  offences  by  terms 
of  imprisonment.  This  law  prescribes  that,  in  the  event  of  the 
police  certifying  that  a  young  man  whose  case  is  under  con- 
sideration has  acted  "  out  of  pure  thoughtlessness  and  without 


ITIGHEK   EDUCATION.  253 

evil  intent,"  the  council  may  either  admit  or  expel  him  at  their 
discretion.  But  should  the  police  impute  to  him  "  perverse  in- 
tentions," albeit  in  a  measure  so  infinitesimal  that  they  do  not 
deem  it  necessaiy  to  proceed  against  him  themselves,  the  coun- 
cil must,  nevertheless,  pronounce  a  sentence  of  perpetual  ex- 
pulsion and  deprivation  of  the  right  to  enter  any  superior 
school  whatever.  Article  4  explains  that  the  preceding  articles 
apply  not  alone  to  students  who  have  fallen  under  the  lash  of 
the  ordinary  law,  but  also  to  those  who  have  escaped  un- 
damaged from  the  exceptional  "  law  of  public  safety  " — in  other 
words,  from  the  martial  law,  which  has  become  one  of  Russia's 
permanent  institvitions. 

To  obtain  for  those  who  have  not  fallen  into  the  hands  of 
the  police  any  remission  of  their  ostracism  is  a  matter  of  ex- 
cessive and  almost  insuperable  difficulty.  Requests  for  indul- 
gence must  be  made  to  the  Emperor  personally  (how  many 
students  have  friends  at  Court  ?),  and  are  only  entertained 
when  the  suppliant  can  j^rove  that  during  two  3'ears  after  his 
liberation,  or  the  definitive  expiation  of  his  offence,  he  has  re- 
pented him  of  his  error.-;  and  entirely  broken  with  his  old  com- 
panions. 

But  apart  from  the  juridic  absxu'dity  of  a  condition  which 
reverses  the  accepted  maxim  that  it  is  crime,  not  innocence, 
that  must  be  demonstrated,  how,  we  ask,  can  repentance  be 
proved,  if  not  by  treachery  or  betra^'al,  or  some  service  ren- 
dered to  the  police  ?  And  it  may  be  safely  affirmed  that  the 
law  touching  the  expulsion  of  students  acquitted  by  the  courts, 
or  who  have  undergone  the  punishments  assigned  to  them, 
notwithstanding  its  deceptive  indulgence,  is  absolute.  The 
police  never  pardon  ;  and  even  if  that  body  and  martial  law 
allowed  them  to  live  freely  in  society,  the  interdict  on  their 
university  career  would  still  remain. 

Such  are  the  true  forms  assiimed  by  the  veritable  war  which, 
sometimes  open,  sometimes  latent,  has  for  more  than  twenty 
years  been  waged  between  the  youth  of  our  superior  schools 
and  the  Government  of  the  country. 


254  RUSSIA   UNDER   THE   TZARS. 


in. 


But  tliesG  fire  the  merest  palliatives.  What  has  this  rutliless 
persecution  of  a  quarter  of  a  century  effected  ?  Nothing  at 
all.  Despite  arrests  and  banishments  the  students  are  as  hos- 
tile to  the  Government  as  before.  The  fate  of  those  who  go 
do-wTi  in  the  struggle  serves  not  in  the  least  as  a  warning  to 
the  survivors.  More  than  ever  are  universities  breeders  of  dis- 
content and  centres  of  agitation  ;  and  is  there  not  something 
in  the  nature  of  things  which  necessarily  produces  this  result  ? 
For  what  is  higher  education  if  not  the  study  of  European 
culture — its  history  and  its  laws,  its  institutions  and  its  litera- 
tnve  ?  And  a  man  who  has  gone  through  a  university  course 
and  studied  these  things  can  liardly  be  kept  in  the  belief  that 
Russia  is  the  happiest  of  aU  possible  countries,  and  her  Gov- 
ernment the  perfection  of  human  wisdom.  Hence  to  destroy 
the  evil  at  its  roots  it  is  imperative  to  stiike,  not  men  alone, 
but  institutions.  Tliis  Count  Tolstoi,  as  a  far-seeing  man,  has 
long  felt,  though  it  is  only  of  late  that  circumstances  have  per- 
mitted the  practical  application  of  his  sagacious  counsels.  In 
the  result  the  universities  were  attacked  in  two  quarters — the 
high  and  the  low.  As  a  beginning  Count  Tolstoi  made  a  stren- 
uous effort  to  reduce  the  number  of  students  by  increasing 
academic  fees  and  rendering  examinations  absurdly  severe. 
"When  this  measure  did  not  suffice  to  abate  the  flood  of  young 
men  eager  for  instruction,  the  Count  (by  a  ministerial  order 
under  date  of  March  25,  1879)  arbitrarily  deprived  seminary 
l^upils  (who  formed  a  largo  proportion  of  the  undergraduates) 
of  the  right  of  admission  to  the  universities,  a  right  they  had 
enjoyed  from  time  immemorial.  At  Odessa  the  proportion  of 
tliese  youths  was  from  a  tliird  to  a  half  of  the  total  number  of 
undergraduates.  Thus  the  new  law  wielded  by  Count  Tolstoi 
did  yeoman  sen'ice. 

Yet  BtiU  he  was  not  satisfied,  and  other  measures  whono 
vandalism  was  cynical  and  complete  were  instituted,  measures 
which  mutilated  to  the  verge  of  extinction  the  system  of 
superior  education. 


HIGHER   EDUCATION.  255 

The  first  to  feel  the  effect  of  tlicso  measures  was  tlie  Mcdico- 
clnnirgical  Academy  of  St.  Petersbur;^.  Thau  this  there  is  no 
institution  in  the  empii*e  more  useful  to  the  State.  It  is  under 
the  Ministry  of  War,  and  sujiplies  the  army  with  surgeons,  of 
whom  diiring  the  conflict  with  T-arkey  there  was  so  lamentable 
a  lack.  But  the  medical  school,  with  its  one  thousand  stu- 
dents, was  a  centre  of  political  agitation,  and  an  Imperial 
ukase,  dated  March  24,  1879,  doomed  it  to  complete  trans- 
formation and  semi-extinction.  The  number  of  students  was 
diminished  to  five  hundi'ed,  the  terms  reduced  from  five  to 
three,  and  the  first  two  courses,  the  luidcrgraduates  belonging 
to  which  were  the  most  unruly,  were  a,bolished. 

The  only  students  now  received  are  those  who  have  passed 
two  terms  at  a  provincial  university.  They  are  paid,  wear  a 
uniform,  take  the  oath  of  allegiance,  and  from  the  day  of  their 
admission  are  considered  as  forming  part  of  the  army,  and 
held  amenable  to  military  law.  At  the  instance  of  the  Min- 
ister of  "War  the  five  years'  course  has  lately  been  re-estab- 
lished, but  the  other  repressive  measiu'es  are  maintained  in  aU 
theii'  rigor. 

On  January  3,  1880,  another  ukase  ordered  a  similar  trans- 
fonnation  of  the  Institute  of  Civil  Engineers.  This  mutilation 
of  a  useful  school  lessened  by  one-half  the  few  openings  in  life 
available  for  the  pupils  of  our  non-classical  gymnasiums. 

A  httle  later  came  the  turn  of  the  Female  Medical  School 
of  St.  Petersbiirg.  This  school,  founded  in  1872,  proved  emi- 
nently useful.  In  Russia  the  supply  of  medical  men  is  utterly 
inadequate  for  the  needs  of  its  vast  population.  Doctors,  being 
much  sought,  natui'aUy  settle  by  j)reference  in  the  towns  where 
their  services  bring  the  best  return.  With  rare  exceptions,  the 
rural  districts  are  left  a  prey  to  blood-letters,  bone-setters, 
quacks,  and  sorcerers.  Women,  on  the  other  hand,  settle  by 
preference  in  the  country,  and  are  content  with  such  moderate 
fees  as  the  zemstvo  can  afford.  The  Female  School  of  Medicine 
was  thus  a  great  boon  ;  requests  for  women  doctors  were  con- 
tinually being  received  from  all  parts  of  the  country  ;  and  when. 


256  RUSSIA   UNDEK   THE   TZAKS. 

in  April  1882  the  Government  announced  that,  "for  pecuni- 
ary reasons,"  they  would  be  compeUed  to  close  the  scliool,  there 
w^s  a  general  expression  of  sui-prise  and  regi-et.     The  papers 
protested  as  much  as  they  dared  ;  the  zemstvo  remonstrated  ; 
the  municipality  of  St.  Petersburg  and  several  scientific  coi-po- 
rations  offered  annual  subsidies  ;  private  individuals,  both  rich 
and  poor,  and  even  obscure  villages,  offered  subscriptions  to- 
wards the  maintenance  of  so  valued  an  institution.     But  the 
Female  School  of  Medicine  was  doomed,  and  m  August,  1882, 
appeared  an  ukase  ordering  its  abolition.     Students  ah-eady 
admitted  might  complete  their  coui'se,  but  no  new  pupils  were 
allowed  to  be  taken.     The  cause  assigned  for  this  proceeding 
was  the  shallowest  of  pretexts  ;  the  time  reason  being  a  fear  on 
the  part  of  the  Government  that  the  school  might  become  a 
seminary  of  revolutionary  ideas. 

Not  less  characteristic  was  the  conduct  of  the  Government  in 
the  matter  of  the  Polytechnic  Institution  of  Kharkoff^   The 
only  estabhshment  of  the  sort  in  Russia  is  that  of  St.  Peters- 
buro-  and  thither  all  youths  desirous  of  being  educated  in  the 
mechanical  aris  must  proceed.     In  a  country  so  vast  this  is 
hi-hly  inconvenient,  and  for  a  long  time  past  Kharkoff  had 
wanted  to  have  a  polytechnic  of  its  own.     At  length,  after  re- 
peated appUcations  to  the  Minister  of  Public  Instruction  and 
negotiations  extending  over  ten  years,  the  authorization  was 
wanted  ;  whereupon  the  municipality  erected  a  suitable  build- 
Tn-  appointed  a  staff  of  professors,  and  all  was  ready  to  begin, 
^yhen  the  Government  suddenly  changed  their  mind,  withdi-ew 
the  authorization,  and  forbade  the  school  to  be  opened-on  the 
ground  that  they  saw  no  necessity  for  any  establishment  of  the 
sort     Nor  was  this  all.     They  offered  the  building,  which  hac 
cost  Kharkoff  50,000  roubles,  as  a  present  to  the  university  ;  bul 
the  university,  maldng  common  cause  with  the  town  dechnec 
the  offer.     The  building  is  stiU  in  the  hands  of  the  State,  anc 
ynO.  it  is  rumored,  be  turned  into  a  cavaky  ban-ack. 

At  len-th,  and   only  a  few  months  ago,  came  the  long-ex 
pected   blow   which  struck   oui-  universities   in   another  ^ita 


HIGHER    EDUCATION.  257 

point — the  rep^ulation  of   September,  1884,  whereby  was  defi- 
nitely abolished  tlie  regulation  of  1863. 

There  ai'e  a  few  recent  questions  which  have  so  gi'eatly  ex- 
cited public  oi:)inion  in  Russia,  and  given  rise  to  so  much 
heated  polemic  in  the  Press  as  that  of  the  aboUtion  of  the 
regulation  of  1863.  It  was  a  regulation  which,  by  permitting 
the  professoi's  to  fill  up  vacant  chau'S  and  elect  the  members 
of  the  managing  body,  conferred  on  the  universities  a  fair 
measui'e  of  autonomy  and  independence.  ]\Ir.  Katkoff,  who 
is  one  of  the  most  influential  men  in  the  empire,  and  whose 
particular  friends  of  the  Moscow  University  have  not  found 
this  independence  to  their  advantage,  entertained  for  the  un- 
fortunate regulation  of  1863  a  mortal  hatred.  For  years  it 
was  his  Delenda  Carthago.  He  protested  against  it  in  season 
and  out  of  season.  To  hear  him  you  woidd  think  this  regula- 
tion was  the  cause  of  all  the  so-called  "disorders"  and 
most  of  the  misfortunes  of  the  last  twent}"  years.  Sedition 
(Nihilism)  in  his  opinion  derives  its  chief  support  from  the 
autonomy  of  the  imiversities.  The  process  by  which  he 
an-ives  at  this  conclusion  is  short  and  simple.  The  majority 
of  the  professors  being  secret  ministers  of  subversive  ideas 
(rather  a  strange  confession  to  be  made  by  a  friend  and  de- 
fender of  the  Government),  to  leave  them  free  to  choose  their 
colleagues  is  to  maintain  at  the  expense  of  the  State  a  per- 
manent revolutionary  propaganda.  But  this  arg\iment,  how- 
ever ingenious,  was  rather  too  far-fetched  to  be  used  by  the 
administration.  A  more  plausible  if  not  a  more  truthful  pre- 
text was  necessary,  something  that  might  enable  the  Govern- 
ment to  say  that  in  abolishing  the  obnoxious  regulation  they 
were  promoting  the  best  interests  of  the  nation.  The  in- 
ventive genius  of  'Mi\  Katkoff  was  equal  to  the  occasion.  He 
developed  from  his  inner  consciousness  the  thesis  that  the 
abolition  of  the  regulation  of  1863  would  give  an  extraordinary 
stimulus  to  the  study  of  science,  and  raise  learning  in  Russia 
to  a  level  with  that  of  Germany.  The  idea  being  eagerly 
caught  up  by  the  official  Press,  it  was  soon  made  to  appear 


258  KDSSIA   UNDER   THE   TZARS. 

that,  in  the  interest  of  knowledge  as  -well  as  of  order,  a  new 
regulation  had  become  absolutely  necessar}'. 

Let  us  now  examine  a  Uttle  this  palladium  of  reaction,  and 
see  by  what  means  it  is  proposed  to  effect  the  twofold  object 
in  question. 

First  of  all,  as  to  the  police  ;  for  whenever  anything  hap- 
pens in  Kussia  the  police  are  sure  to  be  to  the  fore,  and  no- 
body doubts  that  the  object  of  the  present  measure  is  simply 
repression.  This  is  avowed  by  its  advocates.  "  The  universi- 
ties," exclaimed  the  Novoie  Vremia,  "  wOl  no  longer  be  cor- 
rupters of  our  youth.  The  universities  will  henceforth  be 
guaranteed  against  disloyal  intrigues."  But  will  the  new 
regulation  be  reaUy  to  the  advantage  of  leai-ning?  tunidly 
whispered  the  so-called  Liberal  papers.  All  alike  recognized 
the  true  character  and  aim  of  the  measure. 

We  pass  by  the  proposals  for  the  supei-vision  of  the  under- 
graduates, as  to  which  there  nothing,  or  next  to  nothing,  more 
remained  to  be  done.  That  which  gives  a  special  savor  to  the 
new  regulation  is  placing  the  professors  themselves  under 
stringent  police  surveillance  and  an  arbitrary  regime.  Two 
institutions  are  charged  with  this  ignoble  duty.  Fii'st  of  all 
the  governing  body,  composed  of  professors  ;  next  the  police 
of  the  inspection.  Under  the  old  system  the  rector  and  the 
four  deans  were  simply  primus  inter  pares,  elected  by  their 
colleagues  for  a  term  of  three  years,  when  others  might  be 
chosen  to  succeed  them.  Now  they  ai-e  masters,  nominated 
by  the  Minister,  and  holding  their  lucrative  places  at  his  pleas- 
ure. As,  moreover,  among  fifty  or  sixty  men  there  must  nec- 
essarily be  some  sycophants  and  self-seekers,  the  Minister  has 
no  difficulty  in  finding  rectors  who  will  take  his  orders  and  do 
his  bidding.  Under  the  new  dispensation  the  rector,  now  be- 
come a  Government  agent,  is  clothed  mth  extensive  powers. 
He  can  convoke  and  dissolve  at  his  pleasui'e  the  university 
council,  once  the  supreme  governing  body.  It  is  he  alone 
who  decides  whether  the  proceedings  of  the  council  are  ac- 
cording to  mle,  and  by  simply  pronouncing  it  iiregular  he 


HIGHER    EDUCATION.  259 

may  quash  any  resolution  to  which  he  objects.  The  rector 
may  also,  if  he  thinks  fit,  preside  with  the  same  prerogatives 
at  the  meetings  of  the  faculties.  Like  a  commander-in-chief, 
wherever  he  appears  he  is  supreme.  The  rector  is  also  en- 
joined to  make  any  observ-ations  to  the  professors  he  may 
deem  necessary,  and  reprimand  them  whenever  he  sees  fit. 
Every  part  of  the  administrative  machine  is  open  to  his  in- 
spection, either  in  person  or  by  deputy.  Finally,  paragraph 
17  gives  him,  in  cases  of  urgency,  the  right  "to  take  any 
measures  he  may  think  expedient  for  the  maintenance  of  order 
in  the  uriversity,  even  if  they  exceed  his  powers."  This  article 
has  evidently  in  view  the  so-called  "  collective  manifestations," 
wliich  it  is  the  cxistom  in  Russia  to  put  down  by  militaiy  force. 
Bat  almost  any  construction  might  be  placed  upon  the  clause, 
and  there  is  hardly  any  meas\ire,  however  extreme,  which  it 
could  not  be  held  to  sanction. 

Thus  Russian  imiversities  resemble  fortresses  whose  garrisons 
ai'e  permeated  by  sedition,  and  ready  at  any  moment  to  break 
into  open  mutiny,  rather  than  homes  of  learning  and  temples 
of  science.  The  rector  is  the  commander-in-chief.  Under  his 
orders  are  four  deans,  rectors  of  faculties,  each  exercising  in 
his  own  dejiaiiment  analogous  functions,  but  chosen  by  the 
Minister,  not  by  the  rector.  It  is  chiefly  to  the  deans  that  the 
task  is  intrusted  of  overseeing  the  professors  of  their  respect- 
ive faculties  ;  and  to  render  the  latter  more  dependent  the 
new  regidation  introduces  impoi'tant  innovations  in  the  method 
of  their  appointment.  Before  a  man  can  become  a  professor 
he  must  henceforth  serve  tln:ee  yeai's  as  a  tutor  (privat-docent), 
and  he  can  only  become  a  tutor  on  the  nomination  of  the 
cui'ator  of  the  province,  or  on  the  proposal  of  the  councd  of 
professors  of  the  faculty  of  his  choice.  In  any  event  the  ap- 
pointment must  be  confii-med  by  the  curator  of  the  province, 
and  this  functionary,  who  is  a  high  officiid  of  the  Ministry, 
may  revoke  any  tutor's  appointment  without  assigning  a  cause. 
A  tutor's  pay  is  only  about  a  third  of  that  of  a  full-fledged 
professor ;  and  as  he  is  subjected  to  an  incessant  surveillance 


260  RUSSIA   UNDER   TUE   TZARS. 

to  guard  him  against  the  coutagion  of  subversive  ideas,  1 
post  cannot  be  considered  a  very  desirable  one  ;  nor  is 
likely  to  attract  young  men  of  large  views  and  independ( 
mind. 

To  the  rector  and  the  deans  falls  the  duty  of  seeing  tl 
the  tutor's  teaching  is  all  that  it  ought  to  be.  If  his  lectu 
ai'e  not  in  conformity  with  the  dignity  of  his  subject,  or  ; 
found  to  be  tainted  vntli  dangerous  ideas,  they  must  admon 
him.  Should  the  admonition  prove  ineffectual  the  rector  \ 
propose  to  the  curator  to  dismiss  this  refractory  tutor,  and  i 
ciu-ator  will  no  doubt  give  prompt  effect  to  the  proposal.  I 
if  the  cui'ator  should  learn  in  some  other  way  (through  sp 
or  a  member  of  the  inspection)  that  a  tutor's  lectru'es  are  she 
ing  subversive  tendencies,  he  may  be  removed  without  ref 
ence  to  the  rector.  The  new  privat-docents  have  thus  two 
tln-ee  sets  of  masters,  and  besides  being  at  the  mercy  of  1 
rector  and  his  deputies,  as  also  of  the  ciu-ator  of  the  provin 
they  are  liable  at  any  moment  to  be  denounced  by  the 
spector  and  his  satelhtes.  The  least  show  of  independei 
will  insure  their  prompt  dismissal,  the  more  especially 
being  only  young  in  the  scholastic  profession  they  are  i 
likely  to  command  the  respect  of  their  superiors.  For  p 
motion  they  depend  entirely  on  the  Minister  and  his  ager 
Formerly  the  professors  were  nominated  by  the  council  of  i 
faculty.  True,  the  Minister  had  the  power  of  veto,  but  he  h 
no  power  of  appointment,  and  if  one  man  was  rejected  i 
council  had  only  to  nominate  another.  According  to  the  n 
scheme,  however,  the  Minister  can  appoint  to  a  vacant  eh 
"  any  scholar  possessing  the  necessary  qualifications  " — thai 
to  say,  one  who  has  served  the  prescril:)ed  time  as  a  privat-i 
cent.  The  Minister  may  if  he  Hkcs  consult  the  heads  of  1 
university,  but  only  if  he  likes.  He  may  equally,  if  he  hk 
consult  a  private  friend  or  a  member  of  the  inspection.  I 
promotion  of  a  jDrofessor  from  the  second  to  the  first  class- 
change  Avhich  brings  with  it  increased  emoluments — also  re 
entirely  with  the  Minister. 


HIGHER    EDUCATION.  361 

Nor  does  this  exhaust  the  enumeration  of  the  Minister's 
powers.  He  nominates  professors  to  examincrships,  which 
from  a  financial  point  of  view,  and  having  regai'd  to  the  new 
system  of  paying  examiners,  is  a  highly  important  function. 
Under  the  old  system  every  professor  was  i)jso  facto  an  ex- 
aminer ;  under  the  present,  examinations  are  conducted  by 
special  commissions  nominated  by  the  IMinister.  Under  the 
old,  students  paid  a  fixed  yearly  sum  which  gave  them  the 
right  of  attending  all  the  university  lectui-es.  According  to 
the  new  regulations  they  have  to  pay  each  professor  sej)arately. 
In  these  circumstances,  undergraduates,  having  the  right  of 
choice,  natui-aUy  flock  to  the  lectures  of  the  professors  by 
whom  they  ai'e  likely  to  be  examined.  Hence  the  placing  of 
a  professor  on  the  examining  commission  is  greatly  to  his 
pecuniaiy  advantage — it  brings  him  hearers  and  adds  to  his 
emoluments.  The  right  of  nomination  is  thus  a  very  effective 
means  of  increasing  the  power  of  the  Government  over  the 
teaching  body.  In  a  country  such  as  Switzerland,  where 
pohtical  motives  are  not  allowed  to  influence  collegiate  ap- 
jDointments,  this  system  produces  no  injurious  results;  but  ex- 
peiience  proves  that  in  Prussia  its  consequences  are  bad,  and 
in  Austria  nothing  less  than  disastrous.  It  is  easy  to  under- 
stand, therefore,  the  motives  of  oiu'  Government  in  impoiiing 
the  system  into  Russia,  and  the  effect  it  is  likely  to  produce 
there. 

"  But  where,  then,"  the  reader  may  ask,  "  is  the  teaching 
strength — where  the  science  and  other  branches  of  higher 
culture  ?  In  what  consists  the  reform  which  is  supposed  to 
conier  on  the  measure  its  pedagogic  character  ?  Axe  we  ex- 
pected to  believe  that  it  consists  in  the  new  disciiDline  imposed 
on  long-suffering  rectors,  deans,  and  inspectors,  the  appoint- 
ment oi privat-docents  and  payment  by  lesson?" 

All  these  things  being,  in  name  at  least,  borrowed  from 
Gennany,  they  are  expected  in  some  mysterious  fashion  to 
render  teaching  more  efficient.  If  we  could  have  the  freedom 
of   German  universities,   their    methods    might   perhaps   be 


262  KUSSilA    UXDER   THE   TZAES. 

svJopted  with  advantage,  but  the  form  witliout  tlie  spii'it  can 
profit  notliing. 

To  all  who  are  not  blinded  by  self-interest,  it  is  e-sident 
that  the  new  regulation  must  prove  fatal  to  all  true  learning — 
freedom  and  indej)endence  being  as  essential  to  its  prospeiity 
as  atmosj)lieric  air  to  ph3-sical  life.  By  making  political  ortho- 
doxy the  only  sure  qiialification  for  all  higher  university  appoint- 
ments, the  intellectual  ilite  of  the  nation  is  almost  necess:uily 
excluded  from  their  v/aUs.  The  old  system  of  Govenuneiit 
interference  drove  from  their  chaii's  some  of  ovir  best  pro- 
fessors— Kostomarov,  Stasulevitch,  Pipin,  Ai'seniev,  Setchenov, 
and  many  others — aU  moderate  men,  who  had  retained  their 
positions  with  honor  for  years,  and  were  guilty  of  only  one 
fault — that  of  maintaining  their  personal  dignity  and  the 
dignity  of  their  calling,  and  refusing  to  prostrate  themselves 
before  the  desjDotism  of  a  Minister.  That  which  was  formerly 
an  exceptional  abuse  of  power  has  now  become  a  rule.  The 
professors  have  been  converted  into  tchinovniks — an  odious 
name,  despised  by  all  our  Russian  youth — and  their  character? 
and  qualifications  ■\viU  soon  be  in  strict  conformity  with  their 
new  rank  ;  one  by  one  all  true  scholars  will  abandon  theij 
chairs,  and  the  Government,  in  the  exercise  of  their  rights, 
will  fill  them  with  its  creatures.  In  default  of  men  of  high 
scientific  acquirements,  the  old  professors  will  be  succeeded  b 
tutors  and  soi-disant  scholars,  whom  the  ciu'ators  are  at  libert;  \ 
to  choose  from  among  persons  that  have  not  even  undergone 
the  examinations  ordained  by  the  faculty,  "  provided  they  are 
favorably  known  by  theu*  works,"  as  to  the  merit  of  which  his  » 
excellency  the  curator  is  the  sole  judge.  , 


\ 


CHAPTER  XXVI. 


SECONDAKY    EDUCATION. 


The  -svar  of  Russian  Governments  against  higher  education, 
described  in  a  previous  article,  is  of  long  standing.     It  began 
in  the  time  of  Alexander  I.,  dui-ing  the  reaction  that  followed 
the  murder  of  Kotzebue  by  the  student  Sand,  which,  originat- 
ing in  Germany,  spread  quickly  over  the  whole  of  Continental 
Euroj)e.     In  the  reign  of  Nicolas,  which  was  a  period  of  unin- 
terrupted  reaction,  the   universities   were    always  under  the 
special  care  of  the  Thu'd  Section.     In  order,  as  he  hoped,  to 
counteract  the  pernicious  effects  of  hberal  culture,  he  organ- 
ized the  universities  Hlce  battalions,  and  lectvu'es  in  the  class- 
room were  followed  by  drills  in  the  square.     Knowledge  he  re- 
gai'ded  as  a  social  bane,   and   military  discipHne   as  its  only 
antidote.     The  absiu'd  regulation  in  question  was  suppressed 
by  his  son,  whose  reign  began  so  brightly  and  ended  so  terri- 
bly.    Alexander  II.  loosened  the  fetters  which  his  father  had 
imposed,  and  for  some  time  after  he  had  ascended  the  throne, 
learning  breathed  freely  and  made  marked  progi'ess.     But  in 
1860,  when  "  disorders  "  and  "  manifestations  "  occurred  in  the 
universities  of  the  two  capitals,  the  authorities  took  alarm,  re- 
pressive measures  were  adopted,  and  since  that  time  the  strug- 
gle between  the  State  and  the  flower  of  our  Russian  youth  has 
gone  on  with  ever-increasing  virulence.     The  war  against  sec- 
ondary education — for  war  it  has  become — is  of  more  recent 
date.     On  Apiil  4,  18G6,  Karakosoff  fired  the   fatal   revolver 


2G4  KUSSIA   UNDER   THE   TZABS. 

sliot  which  confirmed,  as  it  woiild  seem  forever,  the  resolution 
of  the  Government  to  follow  the  dangerous  path  of  reaction 
and  repression. 

"  You  are  a  Pole,  are  you  not  ?  "  asked  the  Tzar,  when  Kara- 
kosoff  was  led  before  him. 

"  No  ;  I  am  a  Eussiau,"  was  the  answer. 

"  Then  why  did  you  try  to  kill  me  ?  "  demanded  the  astonished 
sovereign.  So  difiicult  did  he  find  it  at  that  time  to  believe 
that  any  other  than  a  Pole  could  make  an  attempt  on  his  life. 

But  Karakosoff  told  the  truth;  he  was  one  of  the  Tzar's 
own  Russian  subjects,  and  the  subsequent  inquiry  dii-ected 
by  Mouravieff  showed  that  many  of  Karakosoff's  former 
feUow-students  sympathized  with  his  objects  and  shared  in  bis 
ideas. 

The  effect  of  this  attempt,  and  the  discoveiy  to  which  it  led, 
were  decisive.  The  Pohsh  insurrection,  as  is  well  known,  had 
conveiied  Alexander  11.  to  reactionary  views.  But  it  now 
became  evident  that  the  reactionary  measui-es  which  were 
adopted  in  1863  had  proved  aboi-tive,  and  that  the  revolution- 
ary fermentation  was  increasing.  Yet,  instead  of  inferiing 
therefrom  that  the  fault  of  this  failure  lay  with  the  new  policy 
of  reaction,  the  very  opposite  conclusion  was  drawn — that  the 
reins  must  be  siill  further  tightened.  It  was  then  that  the 
reckless  reactionary'  party  brought  forward  the  man  of  fate, 
Count  Dmitry  Tolstoi,  whom  posterity  will  call  the  scourge  of 
Russia  and  the  destroyer  of  the  autocracy. 

This  paladin  of  absolutism  was  entrusted  with  j)lenary  pow- 
ers for  the  purification  of  the  schools  of  the  empire  from 
social  heresy  and  poUtical  discontent. 

How  he  dealt  with  superior  education  we  have  akeady  told. 
Yet  he  only  strengthened  and  enforced  the  system  which  his 
predecessors  had  for  a  long  time  practiced.  To  him  alone, 
however,  belongs  the  questionable  honor  of  "  purifying  " — ac- 
cording to  his  lights — first  of  all  secondary,  and  afterwards 
primary  education.  It  was  especially  in  relation  to  the  former 
of  these  branches  that  the  inventive  genius  of  the  man  shone 


SECONDAKY    EDUCATION.  265 

the  most  brilliantly.  His  fundamental  idea  was  perfectly  just 
— that  thoroughly  to  "  purify  "  the  universities  he  must  go  first 
to  the  fountain-head  and  purify  the  gj-mnasiums,  from  which 
they  draw  their  yeaiiy  tribute  of  students.  So  Count  Tolstoi 
set  himself  to  purge  these  institutions,  which,  of  coui'se,  meant 
handing  them  over  to  the  tender  mercies  of  the  poHce  ;  and  it 
is  a  positive  fact  that  Russian  schoolboys  of  from  ten  to  seven- 
teen years  of  age  may  now  be  punished  for  so-caUed  political 
offences  and  for  holding  erroneous  j)olitical  opinions.  No 
longer  since  than  September  of  1883,  the  Minister  of  Public 
Instniction  issued  a  circular  in  which  it  was  stated  that  in 
thirteen  gyinnasiums,  one  pro-gymnasiiun,  and  ten  "  real " 
schools,  there  had  been  discovered  traces  of  a  criminal  propa- 
ganda, and  that  in  f oiu-teen  other  gymnasiums  and  four  "  real " 
schools  there  had  taken  place  "  collective  disorders,"  whatever 
that  may  mean.  AU  these  establishments  were  ordered  to  be 
placed  under  special  poUce  oversight. 

It  is  difficult  for  a  stranger  to  realize  the  extent  to  which 
espionage  is  carried  in  our  gymnasiiuns.  The  pedagogues 
who  ought  to  enjoy  the  respect  of  then*  pupils,  and  imbue  the 
rising  generation  with  sentiments  of  honor,  are  transformed 
into  agents  of  the  Thii-d  Section.  The  boys  are  under  con- 
tinual supervision.  They  are  not  left  in  peace  even  ia  the 
houses  of  their  kinsfolk.  By  a  special  law,  tutors  are  ordered 
to  visit  the  pupils  at  their  own  homes,  or  wherever  they  may 
be  living.  The  Miaister  is  not  ashamed  from  tune  to  time  to 
issue  circulars,  as  on  July  27,  1884,  cynically  offering  rewards 
and  promotion  to  professors  who  show  the  greatest  zeal  in  su- 
pervising the  "  moral  dispositions  "  (read  "  political  tendencies  ") 
of  their  pupils,  and  threatening  that  in  the  event  of  any  ahti- 
govermnental  propagandism  being  discovered  in  their  classes, 
they  will  be  held  equally  responsible  with  the  directors  and 
inspectors  {Rousskia  Vedomorti,  July  28) — which  means  money 
and  advancement  for  those  who  play  the  part  of  spies,  dis- 
missal for  those  who  refuse  to  bow  the  knee  to  Baal. 
12 


260  KU6SIA    -CirDlin   THE   TZARS. 


n. 


But   measures   of   police    are  not   enougli ;    they  must  be 
backed  up  by  measures  of  prevention.     Boys  must  be  removed 
from    every  influence  \\liicli  migbt  predispose  tbem   to  per- 
nicious ideas,  such  as  sociahsm,  hberty,  materialism,   and  so 
forth.     To  this  end  the  pedants  of  the  Third  Section  drew  up 
a  series  of  prescriptions  known  as  the  Gymnasial  Regulations 
of  1871,  which  are  stiU  in  force.     The  explanatory  appendix  to 
the  regulations  says  roundly  that  "the  less  historv- is  sttidied 
in  the  gvmnasiums  the  better."     The  study  of  Russian  htera- 
ture  is  also  banned  by  Count  Tolstoi ;  and  general  geogi'aphy, 
on  account  of  its  "  dangerous  tendencies,"  is  proscribed  by  the 
Minister   of  Instruction.     It  may   "suggest   conflicting  con- 
clusions and  give  rise  to  useless  reasonings."    In  other  words, 
the  study  of  geography  may  peradventui-e  lead  to  discussions 
on  political  and  social  subjects.     For  these  reasons  the  Regula- 
tions of  1871  diminished  the  number  of  lessons,  in  histoiy, 
geographv,  and  Russian.     The  void  made  by  these  omissions 
has  been  filled  up  with  the  learned  languages.     The  panacea  is 
found  in  Greek  and  Latin.     The  gymnasiums  have  become 
classic,  and  nothing  but  classic.     The  fii-st  class  of  a  Russian 
g^^nnasium  (composed  of  boys  of  ten  years  old)  has  now  eight 
Latin  lessons  a  week  ;  the  third  the  same  in  Latin  and  as  many 
in   Greek.     All   other   subjects   are   declared  secondary,  and 
though    not   ostensibly   forbidden,   persistently   discouraged. 
However  many  bad  mai-ks  pupils  may  receive  in  their  mother 
tongue,  in  history,  mathematics,  geography,  foreign  languages, 
or  even  in  religion,  they  never  fail  to  obtain  theii'  promotion  to 
a  higher  class,  but  backwardness  in  the  classical  languages  is 
severely  punished,  often  by  expulsion. 

Is  it,  however,  the  fact,  that  study  of  the  classics  serves  as  a 
safeguard  against  "  peiwerse,"  in  other  words,  hberal  and 
humline,  ideas?  Certainly  not.  Great  authorities  hold,  and 
•John  Stuai-t  Mill  has  said,  that  serious  study  of  the  hves  and 
histoiy  of  the  peoples  of  antiquity  makes  more  for  the  develop- 


SECONDARY    EDUCATION. 


267 


ment  of  moral  and  civic  virtues  than  the  study  of  modern 
history. 

But  we  have  no  desire  to  discuss  the  advantages  or  dis- 
advantages of  classical  education.  Whichever  way  the  balance 
may  incline,  it  is  quite  certain  that  the  classicism  devised  by 
Tolstoi,  Katkoff,  and  consorts,  is  altogether  sui  generis,  and  can 
only  stupefy  those  Avhom  it  is  supposed  to  enlighten.  The  ef- 
fect of  their  regulation  is  to  make  grammar  an  end  instead  of 
a  means.  Scholars  learn  the  language  and  nothing  else.  Their 
studies  are  simply  a  series  of  linguistic  exercises. 

Pedagogues  a  la  Katkoff  do  not  deny  this.  They  merely 
contend  that  there  is  nothing  so  well  suited  for  the  develop- 
ment of  the  intelligence  as  the  study  of  the  dead  languages. 
According  to  an  expression  of  theii's  which  has  been  much  in 
vogue,  it  is  a  mental  gymnastic  exercise  which  no  other  study 
can  equal.  With  this  inscrutable  word  "gymnastic"  they 
meet  all  the  arguments  of  their  adversaries.  Thus  for  seven 
years  past  the  youth  of  Russia  have  been  doing  nothing  but 
gymnastics,  whose  uselessness  is  admitted  by  teachers  and 
bitterly  deplored  by  parents. 

The  effect  of  the  system  on  pupils  is  nothing  less  than  disas- 
trous. Boys  of  ten  and  eleven  years  old,  who  are  compelled 
to  give  sixteen  hours  a  week  to  a  language  so  different  from 
their  own  as  Latin,  end  b}'  conceiving  for  it  such  a  distaste  and 
disgust  that  its  study  becomes  painful  and  unproductive.  The 
examinations  for  removes  are  moreover  so  difficult — by  special 
order  of  the  Minister — that  an  immense  number  of  boys  fail 
to  pass  them,  and  are  summarily  expelled.  According  to  the 
repoi-t  of  the  Department  of  Instruction  for  1879,  which  gives 
the  results  for  the  seven  years  then  ending,  G,511  pupils  only 
had  completed  their  course  during  that  jieriod,  while  no  fewer 
than  51,406  had  either  been  expelled  for  failure  to  satisfy  the 
examiners  or  had  abandoned  the  attempt  in  despair.  The 
chfuices  against  a  boy  in  the  first  (lowest)  class  going  through 
all  the  upi^er  classes,  and  so  being  able  to  enter  a  university, 
are  nine  to  one  ;  that  is  to  say,  eight-ninths  are  rejected.     Of 


268  RUSSIA    UNDEK   THE   TZAKS. 

the  second  class  tliree-foiu-ths  fail,  of  the  third  two-thirds,  and 
of  the  select  few  who  successfully  run  the  gauntlet  and  reach 
the  seventh  class  one-fouiih  break  down  in  their  final  exam- 
ination. 

These  ficciu*es  tell  their  own  tale.  The  svstem  is  not  a  test 
of  fitness  ;  it  is  a  massacre  of  innocents.  The  plan  invented 
by  Count  Tolstoi  dooms  thousands  of  children  to  ignorance, 
and  deprives  many  of  them  of  all  chance  of  a  useful  career. 
And  it  cannot  be  urged  on  behalf  of  the  Government  that 
they  are  unaware  of  the  evil  which  it  works  and  the  discon- 
tent which  it  causes.  For  years  past  the  Press,  fettered  as  it 
is,  has  never  ceased  to  protest  against  the  new  system  of  edu- 
cation and  the  deplorable  consequences  which  it  entails.  De- 
spau'ing  parents  bewail  the  fate  of  their  unfortunate  childi-en, 
and  the  groANing  frequency  of  suicides  among  boys  under 
thiiieen  lends  to  their  complaint  a  temble  significance.  But 
the  Government  remains  firm,  and  the  massacre  of  innocents 
goes  on. 

But  why,  it  may  be  asked,  do  parents  continue  to  send  their 
children  to  the  shambles?  Ai'e  there  in  Russia  no  other 
schools  than  these  classical  gymnasiums?  There  are.  The 
new  classicism  is  designed  only  for  the  weU-to-do.  The  classi- 
cal gymnasiums  do  not  give  a  complete  education.  They  are 
merely  preparatory  schools  for  the  universities.  To  the  nu- 
merous class  who  look  to  education  for  the  means  of  ensuiing 
theii*  children  a  Uvehhood,  the  gymnasiums  are  of  no  use 
whatever.  It  is  consequently  necessai'y  to  thi-ow  them  also  a 
bone,  and  for  their  benefit  have  been  founded  the  professional 
institutions  known  as  "  real "  or  "  realist "  schools.  But  there 
ai-e  very  few  of  them — thii-ty-nine  ;  while  of  gymnasiums  and 
pro-gymnasiums  there  ai'c  a  huntli'ed  and  eighty. 

At  St.  Petersburg,  where  practical  instruction  is  so  greatly 
needed,  there  ai'e  two  "  real "  scliools,  as  compared  with  six- 
teen classical  gymnasiums  and  pro-gymnasiums,  a  state  of 
things  which  proves  that  the  Government  has  very  little  desire 
for  the  diffusion  of  instruction  among  the  middle  classes.    But 


SECONDARY    EDUCATION.  2G9 

it  is  in  the  general  organization  of  these  schools  that  the  iH- 
will  of  the  Government  is  more  particularly  manifested.  Their 
object,  according  to  the  original  regulation,  is  (1)  to  afford 
young  men  an  education  susceptible  of  immediate  practical 
application  ;  and  (2)  to  prepare  them  for  the  higher  profes- 
sional schools  ;  and  they  profess  to  devote  much  more  time  and 
attention  to  the  study  of  the  mother  tongue,  mathematics,  and 
natural  sciences,  than  the  classical  schools.  Yet  these  studies, 
useful  though  they  are  as  the  foundation  of  a  sound  technical 
education,  are  piu'eW  theoretical ;  they  do  not  alone  conduce 
to  any  practical  results.  To  remedy  this  defect,  a  supple- 
mentary class  (the  seventh)  has  been  organized,  which,  how- 
ever, remedies  notliing.  This  class  is  comj)osed  of  two  sections 
■ — one  mechanico-technical,  the  other  chemico-technical.  In 
these  two  sections,  though  the  course  is  five  yeai's,  all  the 
practical  scientific  instruction  is  comprised  within  two  and 
ranges  over  many  subjects — mechanics,  chemistry,  mines,  en- 
gineering— ever}-thing,  in  fact,  that  it  is  hardly  possible  for  a 
pupil  to  get  even  a  smattering,  much  less  an  efiicient  knowl- 
edge of  any  one  of  them. 

The  confusion  which  this  system  must  needs  entail  is  self- 
evident.  These  ai-e  not  courses,  rather  a  catalogue  raisonne  of 
every  sort  of  science,  a  harlequin  performance,  a  kaleidoscope 
composed  of  fragments  of  everything.  The  result  is,  that 
when  pupils  have  passed  through  this  supplementary  class, 
they  are  no  more  capable  than  before  of  apj^lying  practicaU}' 
any  of  the  scientific  knowledge  they  are  supposed  to  have  ac- 
quu'ed.  A  manufa,cturer  never  thinks  of  employing  in  his 
establishment  a  "  realist "  graduate,  for  the  latter's  pretended 
science  is  inferior  to  that  of  an  overlooker  or  workman  who 
has  been  taught  only  by  personal  observation  and  experience. 

liussian  commerce  requii-es  only  men  of  inferior  education, 
but  vathout  diplomas  none  can  become  schoolmasters  and  in- 
stinictors.  Yet  comparatively  few  either  obtain  dijolomas  or 
complete  their  studies  in  the  superior  technical  schools,  the 
reason  being  that  there  is  not  a  sufficiency  of  these  institutions 


370  RUSSIA    UXDEK    THE    TZAKS. 

to  receive  the  pupils  sent  up  by  tbe  "  realist "  gymnasiums. 
According  to  the  report  of  tlie  Minister  of  Public  Instruction, 
published  in  1879,  the  thiiiy  "  real "  schools  having  the  seven 
classes  turned  out  330  students  fuUy  qualified  for  admission 
to  the  superior  schools.  But  as  the  latter  had  room  for  no 
more  than  151,  less  than  half  could  be  received,  and  the 
greater  part  were  consequently  rejected.  And  these  "real  "^ 
school  scholars  are  far  from  being  the  only  candidates  for 
admission  to  the  four  superior  professional  schools.  In  the 
year  1879  alone,  for  instance,  there  -were  no  fewer  than  380 
applicants  for  admission  to  one  technical  school  which  could 
accommodate  only  125.  In  No.  2o38  of  the  Novori  Vremia 
{New  Times)  a  professor,  in  warning  young  men  in  the  prov- 
inces not  to  count  too  confidently  on  being  able  to  enter  these 
institutions,  mentions  that  out  of  one  thousand  candidates 
who  in  1883  presented  themselves  for  admission  into  the  two 
schools  of  industry  and  mines,  no  more  than  two  huudi'cd 
could  be  received,  the  rest  having  to  be  rejected  simply  for 
lack  of  room.  But  despite  the  warnings  and  discouragements, 
so  great  is  the  eagerness  of  our  youth  for  superior  insti'uction 
that  they  stiU  apj)ly  in  crowds  for  admission  to  the  schools, 
only  to  meet,  time  after  time,  with  the  same  rebuffs  and  the 
same  disappointments.  The  demand  for  professional  instruc- 
tion in  Russia  arises  not  only  from  a  thii'st  for  knowledge,  but 
from  a  natural  desii'e  to  develop  the  great  natural  riches  of 
the  countr)%  for  which  a  measure  of  technical  education  is 
absolutely  necessary. 

But  the  Government,  so  far  from  affording  increased  facili- 
ties for  instruction,  actually  forbids  the  foundation  of  new 
colleges,  as  we  have  seen  in  the  case  of  Kharkoff,  and  will  not 
allow  existing  institutions  to  add  to  their  accommodation. 
The  motive  of  this  dog-in-the-manger  policy  is  the  fear  that, 
recruited  as  they  are  from  classes  comparatively  poor,  technical 
schools  are  more  Hkely  to  become  infected  with  subversive 
ideas  than  the  classical  g_>^nnasiums  of  Count  Tolstoi.  The 
fate  of  the  rejected  among  the  "  real "  school  men  is  very  sad. 


SECONDARY    EDUCATION.  271 

Unable  to  enter  tlie  universities,  and  debarred  from  tlie  call- 
ings for  which  they  were  destined,  the  greater  part  of  them 
"remain  in  the  streets."  WeU  may  they  caU  themselves  the 
"  Minister's  bastards,"  for  while  youths  from  the  classical 
schools,  once  they  have  matriculated,  are  received  with  open 
ai'ms,  the  luckless  "reaHsts"  are  rejected  everywhere  ;  against 
them  all  doors  are  closed.  Yet  neither  society  nor  the  Press 
can  either  rest  indifferent  to  the  troubles  of  these  unhappy 
waifs,  or  ignore  the  national  loss  entailed  by  the  riraning  to 
waste  of  so  much  intellectual  energy.  Their  position  has  been 
the  theme  of  hundreds  of  articles,  written  in  the  cautious  and 
measured  language  which  an  imi^erious  necessity  imposes  on 
Russian  journaHsts.  The  best  and  natural  solution  of  the 
difficulty  would  be  the  enlargement  of  existing  technical  col- 
leges and  the  re-estabhshment  of  new  ones  ;  but  this  being 
evidently  out  of  the  question,  no  more  is  asked  than  that 
matriculated  "  realists "  may  be  allowed  to  enter  the  univer- 
Bities  and  graduate  in  medicine,  science,  or  mathematics, 
for  which  they  are  far  better  prepared  than  their  confreres 
of  the  gymnasiums,  whose  acquisitions  are  limited  to  Latin 
and  Greek.  It  will  hai'dly  be  believed  that  even  this  modest 
request  was  refused.  In  1881  the  Zemstvo  took  action  in  the 
matter,  and,  following  the  example  of  the  Zemstvo  of  Tcherni- 
goff,  made  a  general  demand  for  the  admission  of  "  reaHsts  " 
to  the  scientific  faculties  of  the  universities.  The  IMinistry, 
not  deeniing  it  pohtic  to  reject  i^eremptorily  this  petition, 
appointed  a  commission  to  whom  the  question  was  to  be  re- 
ferred, and  a  time  (January  19,  1882)  was  actually  named  for 
the  first  meeting.  But  on  the  18th  the  members  of  the  com- 
mission received  a  notification  from  the  Minister  that  the 
meeting  was  to  be  adjoui'ned  indefinitely,  and  it  stands  ad- 
journed to  this  day. 

It  is  thus  evident  that  the  Government  accepts  without 
reserve  all  the  most  reactionary  ideas  of  Count  Tolstoi,  who, 
rmfortunately  for  our  country,  exercises  a  predominant  in- 
fluence over  its  domestic  policy,  and  the  Minister  of  Public 


273  RUSSIA   UNDER   THE   TZAES. 

Instruction  has  as  evidently  decided  to  deny,  as  far  as  lie  can, 
facilities  for  higher  education  to  all  whom  lack  of  means  com- 
pels to  take  to  jDrofessional  pursuits.  It  is  this  class,  he  thinks, 
which  is  most  disaffected  to  the  State,  and  he  would  make 
sui^erior  instruction  the  exclusive  apj^anage  of  the  rich  and 
noble,  whose  position,  either  as  landowners  or  sei*vants  of  the 
Tzar — if  urged  by  necessity,  or  promj^ted  by  ambition,  they 
have  entered  the  service  of  the  State — constrains  them  to  sup- 
port the  existing  regime. 


m. 


Unsatisfactory  as  is  the  condition  of  our  scholastic  institu- 
tions— badgered  by  the  Government,  watched  by  the  police, 
exposed  to  aU  sorts  of  demoralizing  influences — yet  so  great  is 
the  need  of  instruction,  so  eager  are  our  youth  for  knowledge, 
that  schools  of  every  degTee  are  besieged  by  applicants  willing 
to  submit  to  all  the  conditions  which  the  State  may  see  fit  to 
unj)ose,  but  unable  to  obtain  admission.  That  this  is  no  over- 
dra\vn  or  partisan  statement,  the  following  extract  from  the 
Nedielia  of  August  26,  1883,  will  show  : 

"  The  end  of  the  summer  vacation  and  the  beginning  of  the  schola.stic 
year  are  marked  by  the  usual  chorus  of  complaints  about  the  lack  of 
vacancies  in  the  public  schools,  and  parents  are  cruelly  embarrassed  in 
their  efforts  to  procure  siiitable  instruction  for  their  children.  As  the 
facts  set  forth  in  country  papers  abundantly  testifj^  this  evil  is  by  no 
means  conlined  to  one  locality.  None  of  the  classical  gymnasiums  at 
Moscow  have  vacancies  for  first  class  pupils.  In  those  of  St.  Petersburg 
vacancies  are  extremely  rare.  In  the  gymnasium  of  St.  Petersburg  no 
I)laccs  whatever  are  to  be  had  in  the  first  class ;  in  the  pro-gymnasium 
there  are  only  six  disposable  places  ;  in  the  first  class  and  in  the  real 
school  there  are  no  vacancies  whatever,  not  even  in  the  second  class." 

At  the  Cronstadt  Technical  School  there  were  156  applicants 
and  only  thirtj'  places.  A  con-espondent  writing  from  Kicff 
to  the  same  paper  mentioned  that  for  every  vacancy  there 
were    five    postulants,    for    some   classes    there    were    eight 


SECONDARY    EDUCATION.  273 

and  ten.  The  natural  consequences  of  tLis  state  of  things 
are  excessive  crowding  and  inefficient  teaching.  Masters 
are  at  their  wits'  end  to  find  room  for  those  whom  they 
actually  receive ;  at  every  desk  there  are  four  boys  in- 
stead of  two.  According  to  the  Saratoff  Gazette  there  were 
sixty-sis  applicants  for  thirty-soven  places  in  that  town,  and 
the  masters,  shrinking  from  the  invidious  task  of  personal 
selection,  made  the  candidates  contend  by  competitive  exami- 
nation for  the  vacancies  at  their  disposal. 

These  citations,  which  might  easily  be  multipHed,  will  give 
a  fair  idea  of  the  relation  of  supply  to  demand  in  the  domain 
of  Eussian  secondary  education.  The  same  story  comes  from 
every  part  of  the  empii'e,  and  this  has  been  going  on  for 
3'ears.  It  is  a  virtual  denial  of  education  to  thousands  of 
Eussian  youth,  for,  as  I  have  already  mentioned,  there  is  no 
room  for  private  effort  in  the  dominions  of  the  Tzar.  The 
Government,  which  throws  away  scores  of  millions  in  Court 
festivals  and  distant  wars,  spares  only  a  poor  ten  millions  for 
piu'poses  of  education.  And  yet,  in  spite  of  its  mania  for 
repression  and  the  resolute  will  of  Count  Tolstoi,  the  Govern- 
ment is  forced  from  time  to  time  to  make  concessions,  often, 
however,  more  in  appearance  than  reality.  Every  class  is  in- 
terested in  the  education  of  its  youth.  For  the  higher  orders, 
without  distinction  of  poUtical  opinion  or  social  position,  for 
Government  employes  as  well  as  for  ordinaiy  citizens,  the  ques- 
tion is  one  of  life  and  death.  For  if  their  children  be  not 
instructed,  how  can  they  live  ?  And  these  classes  combined, 
albeit  they  possess  no  recognized  political  influence,  are  able, 
up  to  a  certain  point,  to  force  the  hands  of  Government.  But 
when  the  Goverament  yields  to  pressure,  it  yields  reluctantly 
and  slowly,  and  with  the  worst  possible  grace.  For  instance, 
during  the  last  ten  years,  notwithstanding  increase  of  popula- 
tion and  the  ever-growing  demand  for  greater  educational 
facilities,  the  credit  for  the  gymnasiums  has  been  increased 
by  only  1,400,000  roubles  on  an  expenditure  of  six  millions, 
a  sum  altogether  and  ridiculously  inadequate  for  the  needs 


274  RUSSIA    UNDER   THE   TZARS. 

which  it  is  supposed  to  satisfy.  Tired  of  pestering-  the  Gov- 
ernment with  petitions  and  complaints,  some  of  the  munic- 
ipalities and  the  Zcmstvo  lately  took  the  extreme  resolution 
of  building  new  classical  gymnasiums,  bmdening  their  modest 
budgets  Avith  an  outlay  which  ought  really  to  be  borne  by  the 
State.  The  expenditiu'e  of  the  Zemstvo  of  eighteen  provinces 
on  secondaiy  education  amounts  to  from  25  to  30  per  cent,  of 
the  total  sum  assigned  by  these  bodies  for  public  instruction 
in  general.  This  proves  to  what  point  the  Government  has 
carried  its  policy  of  opposition  to  the  extension  of  middle-class 
instruction. 

The  policy  of  the  Minister  of  Public  Instruction  as  touching 
secondary  schools  may  be  thus  summarized  : — (1)  To  oppose 
by  every  possible  means  the  diffusion  of  secondary  education, 
to  render  it  as  difficult  as  possible,  and  make  no  concession 
save  at  the  last  extremity,  when  all  the  means  of  resistance 
have  been  exhausted.  (2)  When  resistance  becomes  inipossi- 
ble,  to  try  to  exclude  from  the  benefits  of  secondary  education 
the  professional  classes  (to  whom  it  is  a  matter  of  life  and 
death),  in  order  to  confine  it,  as  far  as  may  be,  to  the  higher 
nobility  and  richer  citizens.  (3)  The  privilege  once  granted 
to  these  classes,  to  make  the  instruction  gi\en  to  their  chiltb-eu 
as  sterile  as  possible,  and  so  arrange  matters  that  it  may  be 
imparted  to  the  fewest  number. 

These  conclusions  read  more  like  a  bad  joke  than  stern  real- 
ity, yet  are  they  not  fully  justified  by  the  facts  we  have  cited — 
facts,  be  it  remembered,  taken  from  official  documents  or  from 
a  censured  and  semi-official  Press  ? 


CHAPTER    XXVII. 


PRIMARY    INSTRUCTION. 


Pkimaey  instruction  in  Russia  is  of  very  recent  growth,  dat- 
ing no  further  back  than  from  the  emancipation  of  1861.  It 
is  true  that  great  proprietors  and  serf-owners  used  to  let  a  few 
of  theii-  thralls  learn  enough  to  become  stewards  and  book- 
keepers. But,  on  the  well-understood  principle  that  educated 
slaves  make  dangerous  servants,  the  mass  of  the  rural  popula- 
tion were  deliberately  left  in  the  deepest  ignorance.  On  the 
domains  of  the  Crown  alone  were  there  a  ceiiain  number  of 
piimary  schools,  but  being  placed  under  the  supervision  of  the 
priests  and  the  tchinovnik,  who  had  neither  the  time  nor  the 
wish  to  look  after  them,  they  fell  into  a  state  of  utter  ineffi- 
ciency. The  few  pupils  they  had  learnt  Httle  or  nothing,  and 
more  often  than  not  the  schools  themselves  were  ptu*ely  imag- 
inaiy,  "  they  existed  only  on  joaper,"  as  we  say  in  Russia — in  other 
words,  they  were  to  be  found  only  in  the  rejioi-ts  of  the  admin- 
istration, in  whose  accotmts  always  figvired  divers  sums,  sup- 
posed to  have  been  paid  for  teachers'  salaries  and  repairs  of 
buildings,  sums  which,  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  say,  went  into 
the  fathomless  pockets  of  the  tchinovnik  and  theu'  accomplices. 
When  the  schools  were  afterwards  made  over  to  the  Zemstvo, 
the  frauds  of  this  sort  that  came  to  light  were  absolutely  ap- 
palling. At  St.  Petersburg,  when  the  management  of  the  popu- 
lar- schools  was  handed  over  to  the  municipality  of  the  capitaL 
in  1872,  three,  out  of  a  nominal  sixteen,  were  missing.  They 
had  never  existed;  the  very  names  of  them  were  fictitious.     Of 


276  RUSSIA    UNDER   THE   TZAKS. 

the  remainder  one  alone  was  tolerably  efficient,  the  remainder 
being  badly  organized  and  destitute  of  nearly  every  faculty  for 
study.  The  fii*st  proceeding  of  the  municipality  was  to  provide 
fresh  buildings,  furnish  the  school  with  books,  and  appoint  a 
new  and  competent  staff  of  teachers,  and  organize  ever^v^thing 
afresh.  Yet  these  schools  were  founded  more  than  a  hundred 
years  ago  by  the  Empress  Catharine,  and  had  been  ever  since 
under  the  supeiwision  of  the  State. 

If  this  was  the  condition  of  primary  instruction  in  the  cap- 
ital, it  is  easy  to  understand  what  it  must  have  been  in  the 
country.  So  far  as  it  existed  at  all,  it  was  due  to  private 
effort,  either  on  the  part  of  private  individuals  or  of  the  Zem- 
stvo.  The  Government,  as  I  shall  presently  show,  did  little 
then,  and  it  does  little  now,  but  thwart,  openly  or  covertly,  the 
noble  endeavors  of  Russian  society  to  impart  some  slight  de- 
gree of  instruction  to  the  masses  of  the  people.  In  1859  the 
instructed  classes,  roused  to  enthusiasm  by  the  approach  of 
emancipation,  were  eager  for  all  sorts  of  reform,  and,  above 
all,  to  do  something  for  their  poorer  fellow-citizens,  so  soon  to 
be  free.  The  idea  of  education  took  as  much  hold  of  the 
imagination  of  the  youth  of  that  day  as  did  later  the  idea  of  a 
Socialist  propaganda.  But  the  establishment  of  children's 
schools  was  not  enough  to  satisfy  these  aspii'ations.  The 
effects  of  their  teaching  would  not  be  manifest  for  a  whole 
generation.  "WTiat  could  be  done  to  fit  fathers  and  mothers 
for  the  boon  of  freedom  and  make  them  more  worthy  mem- 
bers of  the  new  society  ?  The  question  was  answered  and  the 
want  supplied  by  the  creation  of  Sunday-schools  in  every  city, 
and  in  almost  every  town  of  the  empu'e.  The  youth  of  both 
sexes  threw  themselves  into  the  work  vdth.  great  ai'dor,  and 
very  soon  excellent  results  were  obtained.  At  Odessa  alone 
six  hundred  persons  offered  themselves  as  teachers — of  coiu'se 
without  pay.  But  the  Government  viewed  all  this  enthusiasm 
with  dire  alarm ;  there  was  no  telling  to  what  terrible  conse- 
quences the  mixing  of  the  poor  and  the  rich,  the  ignorant  and 
the  instructed,  micrht  not  aivc  rise,  and  in  the  autumn  of  18G2 


PKniARY    INSTRUCTION.  277 

the  Sunday-schools  were  suj)pressed  by  order  of  the  Tzar. 
And  so  ended  a  good  work  nobly  begun.  It  was  the  first 
check  imposed  on  the  initiation  of  the  pabKc  in  this  work. 
Popular  instruction  was  again  turned  over  to  the  priests  and 
the  tcJiinovniks,  to  the  end  that  they  might  reduce  it  to  a 
sham  and  a  pretence. 

In  1864,  however,  a  step  in  the  right  dii-ection  was  taken. 
Tlie  oversight  of  jDrimary  education  was  confided  to  the  Zem- 
stvo  and  other  local  bodies.  In  every  district  a  School  Board 
was  constituted,  of  which  three  members  were  nominated 
by  the  Zemstvo  and  the  municipality,  and  thi-ee  elected  by 
the  commune.  The  Board  was  supervised  by  a  provincial 
council  composed  of  five  members,  of  which  two  represented 
the  Zemstvo  and  two  the  tchinovnik.  The  fifth  member  was 
the  bishop,  or  his  substitute,  whose  special  duty  it  was  to  see 
that  the  character  of  the  teaching  in  the  popular  schools  was 
loyal  and  religious.  The  bishop  received  his  information  and 
gave  his  advice  through  the  \illage  priests,  who  were  author- 
ized to  visit  the  schools  and  direct  the  masters,  and  if  the  latter 
did  not  confoiin  to  then*  counsel  to  make  formal  complaint 
against  them.  But  as  neither  the  bishop  nor  the  tchinovnik 
gave  much  thought  to  the  matter,  rarely  attending  the  meet- 
ings of  the  council,  the  management  of  the  schools  was  left 
virtually  to  the  Zemstvo.  The  new  regulation  was  thus  much 
more  liberal  and  popular  than  its  authors  meant  it  to  be,  and 
ofiEered  great  facilities  for  the  estabHshment  of  primary  schools. 
The  greatest  difficulty  encountered  by  the  Zemstvo  was  pau- 
city of  funds,  their  expenditure  being  limited  to  a  twentieth 
of  the  national  revenues.  Yet  stirred  by  a  noble  zeal  for  edu- 
cation the  Zemstvo  did  wonders.  In  1864  the  number  of 
primary  schools  was  17,678  with  598,121  pupils.  We  have 
now  25,000  schools  with  1,000,000  scholars.  But  the  progress 
achieved  was  even  greater  than  these  figui'es  denote.  The 
quality  of  the  teaching  was  vastly  improved.  The  old  teach- 
ers were  composed  chiefly  of  sacristans,  church  singers,  and 
old  soldiers,  most  of  whom  coiild  hardly  read,  much  less  write 


278  RUSSIA    UNDER   THE   TZAKS. 

or  cii^her.  To  remedy  this  evil  the  Zemstvo  stai-ted  teachers' 
training  schools,  and  raised  the  pay  of  the  teachers  from  fifty 
to  sixty  roubles  a  year  to  an  average  of  two  hundi-ed  roubles, 
in  exceptional  cases  to  three  hundi-ed  and  to  thi-ee  hundred  and 
fifty  roubles.  Courses  m  pedagogy  were  also  organized  by 
which  teachers  could  profit  during  the  hohdays,  and  by  these 
means  the  efficiency  of  the  schools  was  improved  beyond 
measure.  Though  no  general  statistics  are  obtainable  as  to 
the  results  of  the  new  depai-ture,  some  suggestive  facts  and 
figures  are  to  be  found  in  the  reports  of  the  Zemstvo  of  Nov- 
gorod, Moscow,  Samara,  and  a  few  other  districts. 

Of  the  present  teaching  staff  about  one-thiixl  have  received 
a  superior  education  in  the  middle  class  schools  and  semina- 
ries, another  thii'd  holds  certificates  from  the  normal  school, 
and  the  remainder  are  men  of  the  old  regime.     From  their 
modest    revenues   of   18,000,000    roubles  the  Zemstvo  spai'e 
4,000,000  for  purposes  of  education;  while  fi'om  its  revenue  of 
360,000,000  the  Imperial  Government  spares  for  the  same  ob- 
ject only  a  milhon  and  a  half,  and  of  this  sum  300,000  is  taken 
by  the  inspection— that  is  to  say,  by  the  pohce  of  the  schools. 
The  countiy  population— freed  serfs  and  their  chndi-en- whom 
many  consider  hopelessly  ignorant  and  brutalized,  and  unfitted 
for  any  pubHc  function,  show  an  almost  pathetic  eagerness  to 
secm-e  for  then-  little  ones  the  benefits  of  education.     Notwith- 
standing their  proverbial  povei-ty,  oui'  rural  communes  volun- 
tarily contributed  as  much  towards  the  maintenance  of  the 
primary  schools  as  the  Zemstvo  and  the  Government  put  to- 
gether.    Of  the  total  amount  (about  7i  million  roubles)  re- 
quired for  these  schools,  the  peasants  pay  41,  the  Zemstvo  34, 
the  Imperial  Government  14,  and  private  individuals,  mostly 
landowners,  11  per  cent.     And  it  is  a  fact  of  much  significance 
that  the  provinces  which  make  the  greatest  sacrifices  for  the 
promotion  of  education  are  exactly  those  in  whose  Zemstvo  the 
peasants  have  the  greatest  proportion  of  deputies.     The  towns 
too  and,  above  all,  St,  Petersburg,  have  made  strenuous  efforts 
to  popularize  education.      The   thirteen  wretched  schools  of 


PKIMAEY    INSTRUCTION.  279 

1864,  with  a  few  score  pupils,  had  grown  in  1882  to  158  excel- 
lent estabhshments  A^-ith  a  staff  of  cei-tificated  teachers  and 
6,000  scholars  of  both  sexes.  The  province  of  Tamboff,  which, 
before  the  creation  of  the  Zemstvo,  had  174  primary  schools 
with  7,700  pupils,  possess  now  500  schools  with  an  average  at- 
tendance of  27,000  children.  In  1860  Nijni  Novgorod  had  28 
schools  and  1,500  scholai's;  twenty  years  later  the  Zemstvo  of 
the  province  had  organized  337  schools,  in  which  nearly  12,- 
000  children  were  receiving  the  rudiments  of  education.  The 
progress  thus  achieved  woidd  be  remarkable  in  any  circum- 
stances; if  account  be  taken  of  the  hostility  of  the  Government 
and  the  difficulties  thi'own  in  the  way  of  the  Zemstvo  by  the 
official  class,  it  seems  prodigious.  The  Government  shows 
scant  favor  to  the  universities  and  superior  schools;  to  the 
primary  schools  it  shows  even  less;  and  its  treatment  of  them 
has  been  so  unworthy  of  the  rulers  of  a  great  country  that,  if 
the  facts  I  am  about  to  set  forth  were  not  proven,  that  is  to 
say,  if  they  had  not  appeared  in  official  reports  and  been  stated 
in  newspapers  over  which  is  always  hanging  the  Damocles 
sword  of  censure  and  suspension — they  would  seem  nothing 
less  than  incredible,  and  I  should  be  accused  of  wilful  exag- 
geration in  repeating  them. 

n. 

The  Zemstvo  hardly  began  the  work  of  reorganization  when 
they  encountered  the  opposition  of  the  JMinistry.  Their  most 
pressing  need  was  good  teachers.  They  wanted  to  be  allowed 
— they  asked  nothing  more — to  establish  teachers'  colleges. 
After  two  years  of  waiting  and  dozens  of  joetitions,  Mr.  Golov- 
nine,  the  then  ^Minister  of  Education,  seemed  to  be  on  the 
point  of  giving  the  required  authorization,  when  (ia  1866)  the 
first  attempt  to  assassinate  the  Emperor  came  to  pass — an 
event  which  was  followed  by  the  accession  of  Count  Tolstoi  to 
the  Ministry  and  his  assumption  of  the  j^ortfolio  of  Public  In- 
struction.    His  first   proceeding  was  to  impose  a  peremptory 


280  KUSSIA    UNDER   THE   TZAKS. 

veto  on  the  proposed  organization  of  teachers'  colleges,  and  in 
his  report  to  the  Tzar,  pubhshed  in  1867,  he  takes  special 
credit  to  himself  for  having  burked  so  pernicious  and  revolu- 
tionary a  scheme.  In  his  opinion,  normal  schools,  besides  be- 
coming centres  of  democratic  agitation,  would  be  the  means  of 
contaminating  the  minds  of  Russian  childi-en  with  subversive 
ideas.  For  five  long  years  the  Minister  remained  deaf  to  the 
prayers  and  remonstrances  of  the  Zemstvo,  who  were  compelled 
to  get  teachers  where  they  could  and  retain  the  services  of 
many  of  the  sacristans  and  old  soldiers,  who  were  hardly  less 
ignorant  than  their  own  scholars.  But  the  events  of  1870 
wrought  a  stai-thng  change,  for  it  was  said — and  all  beheved — 
that  the  victories  of  Woi-th,  of  Gravelotte,  and  of  Sedan  were 
Vv^on,  not  in  the  cabinet  of  General  von  Moltke,  but  in  the 
schools  of  the  Fatherland.  Then  it  dawned  on  the  minds  of 
some  of  the  Emperor's  advisers,  notably  on  that  of  the  Minis- 
ter of  Yf ar,  that  men  make  none  the  worse  soldiers  for  know- 
ing how  to  read  and  write,  and  the  interdict  on  the  estabhsh- 
ment  of  normal  schools  was  removed.  There  are  now  sixty  ox 
them;  but  Count  Tolstoi,  while  yielding  to  necessity,  yielded 
reluctantly,  and  some  of  the  Zemstvo— though  theii-  petitions 
have  been  incessant — have  not  even  yet  received  the  needful 
concession.  But  from  then-  very  mception  these  excellent  in- 
stitutions have  been  the  objects  of  official  jealousy  and  inces- 
sant suspicion,  and  are  continually  exposed  to  the  double  fire 
of  the  pohce  of  the  State  and  the  pohce  of  the  Ministry  of 
Education. 

And  a  regard  for  truth  constrains  us  to  say  that  in  this 
strife  the  Iklinister  of  Instruction  displayed  far  gi-eater  zeal 
than  the  Third  Section.  The  fate  of  our  best  schools  of  this 
class,  founded  by  the  efforts  of  the  Zomstvo  and  the  enter- 
prise of  private  citizens  (by  Mr.  Moksimov  at  Tver,  Mi'.  Dron- 
ginune  at  Torjok,  the  Zemstvo  of  Kiasan,  and  many  others), 
destroyed  for  "  admitting  too  much  air,"  for  "  extending  too 
largely  the  scholastic  curriculum,"  for  "reducing  too  much  the 
charges  for  admission,"  and  for  other  crimes  of  the  same  sort, 


PKniARY    INSTRUCTION.  281 

are  perfect  illustrations  of  the  spirit  in  whicli,  for  the  last 
fifteen  years,  oui-  so-called  lEnister  of  Instruction  lias  con- 
ducted the  business  of  his  depai'tnient  and  promoted  the  cause 
of  education. 


m. 

The  crusade  against  the  universities  is  of  long  duration  ; 
that  against  the  gymnasium  and  secondary  education  began  in 
1866.  As  for  the  primary  schools,  they  remained  for  several 
yeai's  comparatively  free  from  interference  ;  but  about  1874  it 
occurred  to  the  Government  that  by  j)reventing  the  seeds  of 
disaffection  from  being  sown  in  infant  minds  they  might  de- 
stroy Nihilism  at  its  source.  This  idea  was  due  to  the  discoveiy 
that  several  of  the  teachers  were  revolutionary  emissaries.  As 
a  laile,  these  emissaries,  in  order  the  better  to  win  over  the 
working  classes,  assumed  the  character  of  common  workmen, 
and  actually  worked  as  blacksmiths,  masons,  bricklayers,  and 
laborers.  A  few,  probably  not  more  than  a  score,  became 
teachers  in  village  schools,  their  object  being  to  caiTv  on  a 
propaganda  among  the  peasants,  certainly  not  to  impart 
Nihihstic  tenets  to  childi-en  struggling  with  the  alphabet  or 
deep  in  the  mysteries  of  multiplication.  This  portentous  dis- 
covery led  to  the  placing  of  all  the  25,000  schools  of  the 
empu'e  under  the  ban  of  the  police,  and  suggested  to  the 
Government  the  idea  of  the  famous  regulations  of  1874.  The 
character  and  consequences  of  these  regulations  were  de- 
scribed by  a  St.  Petersburg  journal  on  November  2,  1880, 
shortly  after  the  temporary  disgrace  of  Count  Tolstoi,  when, 
during  a  brief  space,  it  was  possible  for  a  paper  to  speak  the 
truth  without  fear  of  prosecution  or  extinction,  in  the  follow- 
ing terms  : 

"Alarmed  by  the  spread  of  socialism  in  the  provinces,  Count  Tolstoi, 
casting  about  in  his  mind  for  the  cause  of  so  portentous  a  phenomenon, 
came  to  the  conclusion  that  the  primary  schools  were  the  source  of  the 
mischief,  and  that  the  schoolmasters  were  the  most  formidable  of  revolu- 


282  EUSSIA   UNDER   THE   TZARS. 

tionary  propagandists.  So  the  Minister  of  Public  Instruction,  instead 
of  favoring  the  creation  of  schools  for  the  diffusion  of  exact  knowledge 
and  correct  principles  among  the  masses,  began  to  put  every  obstacle  in 
the  way  of  this  great  work.  He  tried  to  protect  the  popular  schools,  as 
yet  hardly  established,  from  dangerous  influences  by  measures  much 
more  likclv  to  kill  than  to  cure.  In  the  eyes  of  Count  Tolstoi  our  village 
schoolmasters,  for  the  most  part  poor,  ignorant,  and  inexperienced  (it 
was  only  in  1871  that  leave  was  given  for  the  opening  of  teachers'  train- 
ing colleges),  are  enemies  of  the  State  and  a  danger  to  society,  upon 
whom  it  is  necessary  to  keep  a  perpetual  watch  with  thirty-six  eyes.  In- 
stead of  being  insti-ucted  in  their  duties,  they  are  treated  with  contumely, 
and  supervised  like  released  malefactors.  Instead  of  recei%ing  the  moral 
support  of  the  authorities,  they  are  cowed  by  threats  ;  they  know  that 
the  least  display  of  spirit  or  of  independence  would  bring  them  under 
suspicion  of  being  politically  heterodox  :  and  their  lives  are  made  miser- 
able by  the  knowledge  that  all  their  movements  are  watched,  and  that  at 
any  moment  they  may  fall  under  the  lash  of  the  law  for  offences  they 

wot  not  of. 

"To  keep  in  check  enemies  so  redoubtable  as  these  poor  school- 
masters, it  was  clear  that  some  agencies  were  needed  even  more  power- 
ful than  the  general  police  and  the  Third  Section.  So,  under  the  form 
of  provincial  and  district  scholastic  councils,  Count  Tolstoi  created  a 
police  of  his  own,  which  it  were  no  misnomer  to  call  the  poUtical  police 
of  the  primary  schools.  Nothing  like  it  exists  or  ever  did  exist  in  any 
other  country.  Never  were  schools  so  watched,  guarded,  tutored,  and 
controlled.  Everj-  childi-en's  school  in  the  country  is  supervised,  in  the 
first  line  by  the  governor  of  the  province  and  the  bishop  of  the  diocese  ; 
then  come  the  two  ordinary  councils,  with  their  fifteen  members,  making 
a  total  of  eighteen  persons,  all  of  them  possessing  large  powers, 
though  two  only,  the  director  and  the  inspector,  have  any  special  knowl- 
edge°of  pedagogy.  [In  this  the  writer  is  wrong.  According  to  Article 
20°of  the  regulations  of  1874  these  two  only  are  authorized  to  direct  the 
details  of  instruction,  but  it  by  no  means  follows  that  they  have  special 
qualifications  for  this  duty  ;  they  are  often,  indeed,  less  competent  than 
tlieir  confreres.-]  The  surveillance  of  the  other  fifteen  persons  must 
therefore  needs  be  almost  purely  inquisitorial." 

Nor  is  this  aU.  The  author  of  the  "  regulations,"  being  ap- 
parently of  opinion  that  fifteen  inquisitors  were  not  enough  to 
safeguard  the  schools  from  political  contamination  (Art.  41) 
authorized  the  President  of  the  Council  to  choose  at  his  dis- 
cretion from  the  nobiUty  of  the  district  several  private  persons 


PKIMAKY    INSTRUCTION.  883 

for  tlie  pui-pose  of  keeping  an  eye  on  the  character  of  the  in- 
stimclton  imparted  in  the  primary  schools  with  special  refer- 
ence to  its  political  tendencies.  These  persons,  albeit  no  ex- 
ecutive functions  are  conferred  upon  them,  were  invited  to 
communicate  theii-  "  obsen'ations  and  conjectui'es  (sic)  "  to  the 
President  of  the  School  Council — in  other  words,  to  play  the 
spy.  M.  Kosheleff,  one  of  the  most  respected  members  of  our 
Zemstvo,  said  in  an  article  printed  in  the  Zevistvo  (No.  2)  that 
he  doubted  if  there  could  be  found  in  the  whole  of  Russia  a 
member  of  the  nobility  sufficiently  servile  to  accept  so  ignoble 
a  mission.  But  this  renders  the  regulations  in  question 
neither  less  characteristic  of  the  methods  of  our  Government, 
nor  the  position  of  village  schoolmasters  more  tolerable.  The 
role  refused  by  the  gentlemen  of  the  nobility  is  accepted  by 
the  sfanowi  (constable)  of  the  district,  the  staroste  of  the  com- 
mune, or  village  innkeeper,  any  of  whom  may  communicate 
his  "observations  and  conjectures"  to  the  school  inspector, 
a  proceeding  that  generally  entails  the  poor  schoolmaster's 
prompt  dismissal. 

"  The  position  of  our  teachers,"  observes  the  priest  Kult- 
chinsky  in  the  Samara  Zemstvo,  "is  really  insupportable.  They 
are  controlled  not  alone  by  their  many  sujDeriors,  but  by  all 
the  busybodies  of  a  neighborhood,  in  such  a  manner  that  it  is 
quite  impossible  for  them  to  satisfy  demands  so  vaiious  and 
tastes  so  conflicting." 

The  following  passage  appears  in  the  Kcpoii  of  the  Com- 
mission of  Inquiry  of  the  Zemstvo  of  Bheinigoff  (1880)  : 

"  The  political  element  which  of  late  has  disturbed  our  provincial  life 
has  caused  a  number  of  persons  and  institutions  to  meddle  with  school 
affairs,  from  whose  interference  has  followed  no  good  results.  Teachers 
find  themselves  at  the  mercy,  not  alone  of  a  crowd  of  superiors,  from 
the  Marshal  of  the  Nobility  to  the  village  priest,  but  of  policemen,  rural 
guards,  and  communal  employee.  Worried  by  so  many  masters,  the 
teacher  becomes  incapable  of  performing  his  duties  ;  he  loses  his  head, 
and  in  order  to  obtain  a  little  repose  is  often  compelled  to  abandon  hia 
post." 


284  RUSSIA    UNDER    TUE    TZAUS. 

It  is  also  unfoi-tunately  tiie  fact  tbat  tlie  best  men  ai'e  the 
"woi'st  treated.  The  more  a  master  is  intelligent,  instructed, 
and  devoted  to  his  duty,  the  more  is  he  likely  to  he  susj)ected 
by  his  sujieriors  and  denounced  by  some  agent  of  the  police 
as  a  fomenter  of  sedition  and  a  corrupter  of  youth.  If,  on 
the  contrary,  he  be  ignorant  and  incapable,  a  dninkard  and 
an  idler,  it  is  never  imputed  to  him  that  he  is  a  wolf  in  sheep's 
clothing,  a  revolutionist  in  disguise.  The  effect  of  the  exist- 
ing regulations  is  thus  to  di'ive  from  the  schools  the  most 
competent  teachers — a  fact  which  is  well  understood  by  all  the 
Zemstvo.  It  has  even  been  publicly  acknowledged  by  the 
School  Council  of  Novgorod,  who  in  an  official  report  ex- 
press suri^rise  that  any  properly  quahfied  teachers  can  be 
found  ready  to  accept  the  conditions  imposed  upon  them,  and 
that  it  has  been  possible  to  achieve  the  very  modest  results 
ah'eady  set  forth. 

IV. 

And  all  this  vandaHsm,  this  reign  of  teiToi',  because  among 
25,000  teachers  there  have  been  found  twenty  or  thii-ty  apos- 
tles of  sedition !  Can  it  really  be  that  the  Russian  Govern- 
ment is  so  ludicrously  nervous  as  to  tremble  at  the  thought  of 
a  score  or  two,  or  even  of  a  hundred,  NiliUist  emissaries  being 
scattered  over  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  empire  ?  or  is  it 
only  a  pretext  to  hamper  primary  education  ?  Pending  an 
answer  to  this  question  I  freely  give  the  Government  credit  for 
all  the  stupidity  which  their  conduct,  on  the  hypothesis  that 
they  are  sincere,  inevitably  implies. 

But  as  we  shall  presently  see,  its  policy  in  the  matter  of  pop- 
ular instniction  possesses  a  remarkable  peculiarity  which  cannot 
be  ascribed  to  fear  of  socialism. 

As  I  have  already  mentioned,  the  regulations  of  18G4 
placed  the  direction  of  the  primary  schools  virtually  in  the 
hands  of  the  local  authorities.  It  was  the  best  and  most  nat- 
lU'al  ai'rangcment ;   it  worked  to  the  satisfaction  of  all ;    and 


PKIMARY   INSTKTJCTION.  285 

the  Zemstvo  by  tlieii*  zeal,  and  the  peasants  by  tiieii-  contiibu- 
tions,  showed  themselves  fully  worthy  of  the  trust  rejiosed  in 
them.     But  from  1869  the  Government  began,  little  by  little, 
to  undo  the  good  they  had  done  ;   by  the  regulations  of  187-1 
the  local  authorities  were  completely  ousted  from  the  manage- 
ment of  the  schools,  and  the  tchinovnik  ruled  in  tlieii-  stead. 
The  Zemstvo  may  pay  if  they  hke,  for  the  payment  is  optional, 
but  they  have  no  longer  any  right  to  control  the  expenditure 
or  take  pai-t  in  the  direction,  which  is  vested  altogether  in  the 
nominees  of  the  Minister  under  the  official  designation  of  In- 
spector of  Popular  Schools.     The  power  of  these  functionaries 
is  httle  less  than  despotic.     Without  their  authorization  it  is 
not  permitted  either  to  build  a  school-house,  engage  a  teacher, 
begin  a  new  course  of  instruction,  or  even  piu'chase  a  primer. 
An  inspector,  by  a  mere  stroke  of   the  pen,   can  dismiss   a 
master,  close  a  school,  or  suppress  a  com-se  of  lessons.     The 
so-called  council  may  ask,  but  they  cannot  require,  information 
touching  the  progress  of  the  schools  which  they  subsidize  ; 
the  inspectors  even  refuse  to  communicate  to  them  the  results 
of  the  periodical  examinations,  for  this,  as  one  of  these  func- 
tionai-ies  lately  explained  to  the  Zemstvo  of  the  j)rovince  of 
Taurida,  would  be  admitting  their  right  to  meddle  in  matters 
which  concern  the  inspectors  alone.     Thus  the  sole  sphere  of 
activity  left  open  to  the  two  councils  is  that  of  police  ;  and  it 
is  a  cui-ious  fact  that  albeit  certain  councillors  may,  if  they 
discover    anything    poHtically    suspicious,    either    dismiss    a 
master,   or   shut   up  a  school,  they  have  no  right  either  to 
recommend  a  manual  or  offer  an  opinion  on  the  quality  of  the 
teaching  or  the  progress  of  the  scholars.     And  the  inspectors, 
be  it  remembered,  have  no  special  qualifications  for  the  posi- 
tions which  they  occupy.     •'  During  the  last  few  years,"  runs 
the  repoi-t  of  the  Zemstvo  of  Tcheraigoff  for  1881,  "  the  ia- 
spection  of  our  schools  has  become  more  stringent  and  less 
pedagogic.     Among  the  new  inspectors  of  primaiy  schools  is 
hardly  to  be  found  one  who  has  received  a  superior  education 
or  obtained  a  certificate  of  proficiency  as  a  teacher.     Some  of 


286  RUSSIA   UNDER   THE   TZARS. 

them  are  men  of  phenomenal  ignorance.  Of  one,  a  certain 
INIr.  Jaukovsky,  the  report  of  the  Zemstvo  of  Berdiansk  men- 
tions that,  during  a  pubHc  examination  held  m  presence  of  the 
governor  of  the  province,  he  showed  utter  inabihty  to  under- 
stand some  of  the  simplest  rules  of  ai-ithmetic,  such  as  ai-e 
taught  to  childi-en  of  tender  age. 

What,  it   may  be   ashed,  can   be  the   cause  of  this  reac- 
tionary pohcy  of  the  Russian  Government  in  regard  to  primary 
education?     To  push  pohce  supei-^^sion  over  the  person  of  the 
schoolmaster  to  so  absui-d  a  length   as  that  which   I  have 
described  seems  nothing  less  than  a  senseless  freak  of  power. 
It  is  like  burning  do^^•n  a  house  to  rid  it  of  mice.     There  is, 
nevertheless,    a   sufficiently   obvious,  yet   utterly   inadequate, 
reason  for  all  these  proceedings.     The  schoohnasters  ai-e  gen- 
erally young  men,  the  mistresses  young  women,  and  the  young 
being  more  receptive  of  new  and  strange  ideas  than  the  old, 
are  therefore  more  likely  to  be  contaminated  with  the  pest  of 
Nihilism.     It  is  surely  against  them  that  the  Government  aim 
these  measures  of  repression,  even  at  the  risk  of  destroying 
primary  education  altogether  or   rendering   it   inefficient   to 
worthlessness.     Yet  this  theory,  though  it  may  be  good  as  far 
a^  it   goes,   does  not  explain  why  the  management   of   the 
schools  was  taken  out  of  the  hands  of  the  Zemstvo.    For  a  pro- 
ceeding so  contrary  to  common  sense  no  deep  political  motives 
caii  be°as3igned.     It  has  never  occuiTed  even  to  the  most  sus- 
picious of  Ministers  that  the  Zemstvo  are  capable  of  converting 
the  schools  into  centres  of  a  socialist  agitation.     The  Zemstvo 
are  composed  of  landowners,  priests,  merchants,  and  starchina 
(i-ural  mayors),  none  of  them  in  the  heyday  of  youth,  or  men 
whom  even  the  most  keen-scented  of  poUce  functionaries  can 
suspect  of  socialist  tendencies.     It  is  tme  that  they  are  not  in 
favor  of  the  present  ngime.    Every  member  of  a  Zemstvo,  if 
he  be  not  a  traitor  to  his  cause,  must  needs  desu-e  self-govern- 
ment and  the  free  initiative  of  society— therefore  political  free- 
dom more  or  less  extensive.     On  the  other  hand,  there  has 
never  been  an  instance  of  the  Zemstvo  using  the  schools  for 


PRIMARY    INSTRUCTION.  287 

the  propagation  of — let  us  say — constitutional  ideas.  During 
the  twenty-one  years'  existence  of  the  thiiiy-fovir  Zemstvo,  no 
such  chai-ge  as  this  has  been  brought  against  them. 

We  are  thus  driven  to  the  conclusion  that  the  reactionary 
measures  of  the  Government  are  dictated  by  an  instinctive  dis- 
like of  education  for  its  own  sake,  and  a  desire  to  check  what 
they  deem  a  too  rapid  enlightenment  of  the  masses  of  the 
j)eople.  At  first  sight  this  conclusion  may  seem  as  extravagant 
as  some  other  conclusions  concerning  the  motives  of  the 
Russian  Government,  which,  nevertheless,  there  is  no  evading. 
For  in  this  regard  the  Government  has  the  merit  of  being 
frank  to  cynicism,  as  the  facts  I  am  about  to  adduce  abun- 
dantly prove. 

The  regulation  of  1874  strictly  limits  the  instiaiction  to  be 
given  in  the  primary  schools.  In  other  countries  there  is  a 
minimum  of  education  which  all  childi'en  must  reach ;  in 
Russia  there  is  a  maximum  beyond  which  none  may  go.  It  is 
strictly  forbidden  to  oiu'  little  peasant  children  to  acquire 
more  than  (a)  an  elementary  knowledge  of  the  catechism  and 
of  sacred  history,  (b)  of  reading  and  writing,  and  (c)  of  the 
four  first  iTiles  of  arithmetic.  Over  and  over  again  have  the 
Zemstv'O  besought  the  Ministry  to  let  them  enlarge  a  Httle  this 
meagre  ciuTiculum,  and  give  the  poor  little  ones — some  of 
them  very  inteUigent  and  eager  to  learn — an  idea  of  geometry, 
of  decimals,  and  of  the  geography  of  the  land  they  Hve  in. 
All  in  vain  ;  such  requests  are  either  treated  with  contemptuous 
sUence  or  answered  with  a  peremptory  negative.  The  same 
obscui'antism  explains  the  refusal  of  the  Government  to  j^ermit 
the  use  of  any  other  language  than  Russian  in  the  folk-schooLs 
of  Finland,  the  Ukraine,  and  Poland,  albeit  the  peasants  of 
those  countries  know  no  tongue  but  their  own.  The  con- 
sequence is  that  the  children  for  the  most  part  learn  neither 
Russian  nor  anything  else,  which  is  probably  what  the  authori- 
ties want. 

The  management  of  the  schools  under  the  present  system, 
as  must  always  be  the  case  when  a  Inu'eaucracy  meddles  with 


288  KUSSIA    UNDKR   THE   TZAIIS. 

local  affaii-s  requiring  special  knowledge,  is  radically  bad. 
The  money  spent  on  the  112  inspectors,  which  would  suffice 
to  build  annually  700  new  schools,  is  simply  wasted.  Each  of 
the  112  has  the  care  of  122  schools,  and,  as  the  primary  schools 
make  only  about  15G  working  days  in  the  yeai',  it  foUows  that 
the  inspector  of  a  district  can  give  little  more  than  one  day 
during  that  time  to  each  school — or  could  if  they  were  close 
together.  But  seeing  that  they  are  generally  spread  over  an 
area  half  as  large  as  Ii'eland,  destitute  of  railways  and  iU  pro- 
vided with  roads,  it  is  evident  that  no  inspector,  let  him  be 
ever  so  zealous,  can  give  much  more  than  an  hour  a  year  to 
each  of  the  schools  within  his  jiuisdiction — even  if  he  were  to 
spend  every  moment  of  his  waking  houi's  in  galloping  over  the 
length  and  breadth  of  his  district. 

These  hard-wrought  officials,  moreover,  have  a  terrible 
amount  of  office  work  to  get  through.  They  are  always  writ- 
ing and  answering  letters,  making  reports,  and  filling  up  re- 
turns. The  inspector  of  Beloosero,  when  the  Zemstvo  com- 
plained that  he  never  visited  their  schools,  asked  indignantly 
how  they  covild  expect  him  to  do  anything  of  the  sort,  seeing 
that  he  had  to  send  off  2,000  depaiimental  and  other  business 
papers  in  the  course  of  the  year.  In  1879  the  Zemstvo  of 
Novgorod  complained  that  the  inspectors  had  not  time  to  visit 
even  the  model  schools  of  the  district,  or  be  present  at  the  ex- 
aminations, to  the  great  inconvenience  of  all  concerned,  none 
save  the  inspectors  having  power  either  to  give  orders  or  pre- 
sent reports.  Similar  complaints  are  continually  made  by 
other  Zemstvo  (for  instance  by  those  of  Saraloff,  Tchernigoff, 
Ekaterinoslav,  and  many  more),  and,  though  the  latter  have  re- 
peatedly offered  to  appoint  supi^lemcntary  inspectors  at  their 
own  expense,  they  have  not  yet  succeeded  in  i^revailing  upon 
the  Ministry  to  accept  this  reasonable  solution  of  the  difficulty. 

V. 

The  schools  are  thus  in  effect  left  without  any  true  scholas- 
i\c.    (n.9i    disi,in<TiiiKhed    fioni    nnlitieal^    overpio'lit   or   direpfion 


PETMAKY   INSTRUCTION.  289 

whatever.  The  inspectors  neither  act  themselves,  nor  let 
others  act,  and  the  Zemstvo  are  placed  between  the  alterna- 
tives— watching-  with  folded  hands  the  destniction  of  their 
favorite  work,  and  engaging  in  perpetual  conflict  \^^^h  the 
agents  of  the  State.  Hence  arise  retrogression  on  the  one 
hand,  and  endless  contests  with  the  inspectors  on  the  other. 
The  miserable  history  of  our  primary  schools  is  that  of  an  in- 
terminable war  between  these  in'econcilable  elements,  a  war 
in  which  the  inspectors,  backed  by  the  Minister,  always  pre- 
vail. In  a  country  so  habituated  to  despotism,  moreover,  it  is 
inevitable  that  the  contest  should  often  assume  a  character  of 
pru'e  vandalism.  Of  this  the  affair  of  Berdiansk,  among 
others,  offers  a  remarkable  instance.  Berdiansk  was  remark- 
able for  its  zeal  in  the  cause  of  education  ;  the  best-schooled 
district  in  the  well-schooled  province  of  Taurida,  only  one  of 
its  eighty-eight  primary  schools  was  subsidized  by  the  Govern- 
ment ;  all  the  rest  were  supported  by  the  locality.  It  had  no 
special  inspector.  The  functionary  who  was  charged  with  the 
duty,  having  two  other  districts  to  look  after,  could  naturally 
give  very  little  attention  to  any  of  them.  So  the  Zemstvo,  having 
no  hope  of  being  allowed  to  ap^Doint  a  qualified  school  inspector 
of  their  own,  resolved,  if  possible,  to  secure  the  services  of  a 
tchinovmk  inspector.  A  request  to  this  effect  was  forwarded 
to  the  Slinister  in  due  fomi,  the  Zemstvo  offering,  if  it  were 
granted,  to  pay  the  man's  salary  out  of  their  resources.  For 
five  years  this  modest  request,  though  continually  reiterated, 
remained  unheeded  and  unanswered.  But  perseverance  does 
wonders,  and  in  the  fifth  year  they  were  gratified  by  the  ap- 
pointment of  a  certain  Mr.  Garousoff,  a  favor  for  which  they 
tendered  the  Minister  their  warmest  thanks.  But  the  Zemstvo 
were  not  long  in  finding  out  that  they  had  made  as  great  a 
mistake  as  the  frogs  who  asked  for  a  king  and  got  a  stork.  The 
new  inspector  conducted  himself  like  the  master  of  a  con- 
quered coimtry.  "  He  annuled  all  the  instructions  and  rules 
for  the  management  of  schools  without  substituting  others, 
a  proceeding  vvOiich  j^roduced  at  first  indescribable  confusion ; 


290  RUSSIA   UNDER    THE   TZARS. 

and  ^vhen  (after  some  time)  IMr.  Garoiisoff's  rules  and  pre- 
scriptions appeared,  they  were  so  contradictory  that  the  teach- 
ers did  not  know  what  to  do  or  whom  to  obey.  He  next,  with- 
out anv  plausible  pretext,  dismissed  and  transfen-ed  from  one 
place  to  another  the  best  teachers.  Alarmed  by  thi-eats  '  to 
thi-ow  them  on  the  streets  with  a  stroke  of  his  pen,'  which 
Mr.  GarousofE  continually  repeated,  the  teachers  began  to  leave 
ohe  disti-ict.  And  when,  to  increase  his  power,  the  inspector 
brought  against  several  of  them  political  accusations-com- 
pletely  false,  as  was  subsequently  shown— the  teachers  were 
thrown  into  a  veritable  panic." 

The  Zemstvo  complained  to  the  director,  as  also  to  the  ^Im- 
ister,  and  prayed  to  be  relieved  of  the  Vandal  ^ith  whom  the 
latter  had  presented  them.    But  all  in  vain,  and  in  the  end  the 
Zemstvo  only  got  rid  of  their  unloved  inspector  by  a  happy 
accident.     He  made  a  charge  against  a  teacher  of    so  out- 
ra'-eous  a  character  that  Todtleben  was  constrained  to  dis- 
mrss  him,    and   in  October,  1879,    Garousoff   was  succeeded 
by  Saukovsky.     But  the  ^linister  evidently  held  the  district 
in  detestation.     Its  schools  were  altogether  too  popular  and 
successful.     Saukovsky  was  no  improvement  on  his  predeces- 
sor.    He  dismissed  teachers  without   cause,    and   when  the 
Zemstvo  protested  against  the  discharge  of  a  governess  whom 
he  had  accused  of  socialism,  he  tlireatened  to  accuse  the  en- 
tu-e  Zemstvo  of  sympathizing  with  subversive  ideas.     He  gave 
no  heed  to  the  wishes  of  the  Zemstvo  as  to  the  management 
of  the  schools,  saving  that  their  only  duty  was  the  paj-meut  of 
his  salary.     He  introduced  so  many  changes  into  the  scho- 
lastic course  that  the  books  did  not  arrive  until  the  end  of  the 
year,  when  the  course  was  over,  and  the  schools  were  kept 
without  teachers  merely  because  the  inspector  did  not  take 
the  trouble   to    confii-m   his    appointment.      This   barbarous 
regime  lasted  two  years  and  did  not  terminate  until  the  papers 
were  filled  ^^ith  letters  on  the  subject,  and  the  schools  of  Ber- 
diansk  became  the  question  of  the  day  and  a  pubHc  scandal. 
Were  incidents  like  these  of  rai-e  occun-ence,  they  might. 


PKIMAEY    INSTRUCTION. 


291 


by  no  gi'eat  stretch  of  charity,  be  ascribed  to  accident  or 
official  stupidity  ;  but  they  are  too  frequent  to  be  uninten- 
tional, and  must  be  held  to  express,  in  deed  if  not  in  word, 
the  deliberate  policy  of  the  Ministry  of  Education.  In  the 
provinces  of  Tamboff,  Ekaterinoslav,  and  many  others,  anal- 
ogous facts  have  come  to  pass,  and  instances  of  conflicts  be- 
tween the  Zemstvo  and  the  inspectors,  arising  from  similar 
causes,  might  be  produced  ad  infinitum.  In  the  session  of 
1879  the  Zemstvo  of  Raizan  presented  an  address  of  thanks 
to  the  five  inspectors  of  the  pro"s4nce  for  "  having  abstained 
from  using  the  means  at  their  disposal  to  thwart  the  Zemstvo 
in  their  efforts  to  promote  primary  education  and  increase  the 
usefulness  of  the  \T.lIage  schools."  What  irony  could  be  more 
bitter,  or  better  proof  be  adduced  of  the  determination  of  the 
Government  to  hinder  in  every  possible  way,  short  of  absolute 
suppression,  the  development  of  our  jDopular  schools  ?  True, 
they  have  increased  in  numbers  ;  but  owing,  on  the  one  hand, 
to  the  absence  of  any  real  inspection,  and,  on  the  other,  fre- 
quent changes  of  system  and  dismissals  of  teachers,  their 
efficiency  is  impaired  to  an  extent  that  renders  them  powerless 
for  good.  In  some  instances  the  Zemstvo,  weary  of  petition- 
ing and  remonstrating,  have  withdrawn  their  subsidies  and 
left  the  schools  to  take  care  of  themselves.  During  Count 
Tolstoi's  temporary  disgrace  there  was  a  hope  of  better  things, 
and  his  successor,  M.  Sabouroff,  was  HteraUy  bombarded  with 
petitions  from  all  parts  of  the  country,  beseeching  him  to  re- 
store to  the  Zemstvo  their  liberty  of  action  in  the  matter  of 
education.  But  when,  three  months  later.  Count  Tolstoi  re- 
turned to  power  as  Premier  and  IVIinister  of  the  Interior,  all 
hope  of  amendment  was  at  an  end. 


YI. 

The  Ministry  of  War  has  always  shown  more  favor  to  educa- 
tion than  the  IMinistry  of  Pubhc  Instraction,  and,  according  to 


292  RUSSIA   UNDER   THE   TZARS. 

completed  their  coui'se  in  a  popular  scliool  are  let  off  with  four 
years'  military  seiTice  instead  of  six.     But  owing  to  the  indif- 
ference of  the  peasants,  arising  from  the  obAdous  inefficiency 
of  the  schools,  this  clause  has  become  almost  a  dead  letter. 
"  The  condition  of  our  schools,"  says  the  Russian  Almanac  for 
1880,  "  is  shown  by  the  great  number  of  pupils  who   abandon 
their  studies  before  completing  their  course.     In  1877  certifi- 
cates were  gi'anted  to  no  more  than  88,255,  equal  to  about  8 
per  cent,  of  the  total  number  of  scholars."    Figui'es  like  these 
are  more  eloquent  than  words.     Only  one  scholar  in  twelve  or 
thirteen  succeeds  in  reaching  the  very  low  mark  set  by  the  ex- 
aminers. 

With  this  result  the  Government   might  surely  have  been 
satisfied,  for  they  have  virtually  suppressed  eleven  schools  out 
of  twelve.     But  so  far  is  this  from  being  the  case,  that  the 
Minister  of  Public  Instruction  contemplates  a  measiu-e  even 
more  sweeping  than  the  deposition  of  the  Zemstvo— a  measure 
which  would  be  equivalent  in  the  end  to  the  entire  suppression 
of  primary  instruction  throughout  the  empire.*     He  proposes 
to  take  the  schools  out  of  the  hands  of  the  Zemstvo  altogether, 
and  to  make  the  clergy  the  sole  managers  of  primary  educa- 
tion.    He  might  as  weU  propose  to  make  the  management  over 
to  the  chHdren;  for  the  work  would  never  be  done,  and  the 
schools  would  perish  of  neglect.     The  clergy  have  neither  time 
nor  inchnation  for  any  other  than  their  strictly  clerical  duties. 
The  Zemstvo  of  Kazan  complained  a  httlo  whHe  ago  that  for 
two  years  the  schools  had  not  once  been  visited  by  a  priest; 
formal  complaints  on  the  same  score  have  been  made  by  the 
Zemstvo  of  Moscow,  Voronej,  Tcheraigoff,  TambofC,  and  St. 
Petersburg.     In  some  provinces  even  the  priests  have  met  and 
passed  resolutions  to  the  effect  that  rehgious  instruction  can 
only  be  efficiently  given  by  secular  teachers,  for  even  this  duty 
it  is  quite  out  of  the  power  of  the  clergy  to  perform.     Nor 
when  it  is  remembered  that  some  of  the  parishes  ai-e  so  exten- 


*  This  was  written  before  June  12,  1884. 


PKIMABY    INSTRUCTION.  293 

sive  that  to  give  one  lesson  a  week  in  eacli  school  would 
take  two  or  three  days,  is  tlais  result  very  sui-prising  It  ia 
not  given  even  to  a  priest  to  be  in  two  places  at  one  time. 
What  would  be  the  consequence  of  handing  over  the  schools 
to  a  class  of  men  ali'eady  so  heavily  burdened  (to  say  nothing 
of  theii-  utter  lack  of  pedagogic  qualifications)  may  easily  be 
imagined. 

All  this  is  well  known  to  Count  Tolstoi,  both  as  ex-Minister 
of  Education  and  ex-President  of  the  Holy  Synod.  For  my 
own  part,  I  do  not  think  that  a  scheme  so  monstrous  can  be 
carried  into  effect  There  ai-e  limits  even  to  the  blindness 
and  wickedness  of  an  autocracy  based  on  ignorance  and  but- 
tressed by  lies.  But  it  is  characteristic  of  the  spuit  which 
animates  the  advisers  of  the  Tzar  that  a  scheine  so  inimical  to 
the  best  interests  of  the  country  should  be  seriously  enter- 
tained. 


I  wrote  thus  in  the  Times  in  the  spring  of  1834,  and  I  re- 
produce the  foregoing  Hnes  by  way  of  penance  for  my  want 
of  foresight  and  the  misplaced  optimism  which  I  then  ex- 
pressed. The  substitution  of  the  clergy  for  the  Zemstvo  in 
the  management  of  the  schools  which  less  than  a  year  ago  I 
beheved  to  be  morally  impossible  was  effected  by  the  law  of 
June  12,  1884^  abolishing  the  School  Councils  and  transfer- 
ring aD  their  powers  to  the  bishoj)s  and  their  nominees  among 
the  clergy. 

If  the  result  of  this  measure  be  not  to  throw  back  the  peas- 
antry into  their  anti-emancipation  condition  when,  as  one  of 
our  writers  has  said,  you  might  travel  a  week  without  meet- 
ing a  raoujik  who  could  sign  his  name,  it  will  be  because  the 
moujiks  themselves  have   acquiied  a  desire    for  knowledge. 


294  KUSSIA   UNDER   THE   TZAK8. 

As  for  the  Minister  of  Justice,  we  must  do  liiiQ  tlie  justice  to 
acknowledge  that  be  lias  now  done  everything  that  man  can 
do  to  realize  the  golden  dream  of  despotism — complete  igno- 
rance. 


CHAPTER    XXVIII 


THE    ZEMSTVO. 


The  principle  of  self-government  is  no  novelty  in  Russia. 
"  When  the  Muscovite  depotism  crushed  every  class  under  its 
leaden  weight  and  deprived  the  people  of  their  most  sacred 
rights,"  says  Kostomaroff,  "  men  and  citizens  protected  after 
their  fashion.  They  indemnified  themselves  by  putting  their 
hands  on  ever;j'thing  confided  to  them  by  the  State.  To  cheat 
Government,  take  its  money,  sell  the  justice  which  they  dis- 
pensed in  its  name,  and  piUage  the  provinces  they  were  charged 
to  administer  became  among  the  public  functionaries  of  ancient 
Muscovy  an  accepted,  inveterate,  and  hereditary  custom." 
From  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  everybody  stole.  They  made 
no  distinction  between  theft  and  remuneration,  robbery  and 
profit.  The  Central  Government  itself  did  not  oppose  these 
practices  or  principles  ;  they  only  protected  against  peculation 
and  exaction,  when,  as  sometimes  happened,  the  plunderers 
went  to  exti-avagant  lengths.  A  poor  boyard,  on  asking  the 
Tzar  for  the  post  of  voevoda,  made  no  attempt  to  disguise  his 
motives,  generally  putting  his  request  in  some-  such  terms  as 
these  :  "  And  I,  thy  faithful  slave,  am  reduced  to  beggary  and 
my  servants  perish  under  the  sticks  of  tax-gatherers.  Give  me 
then  this  place  that  I  may  feed  myself  a  little." 

To  "give  food,"  or  "receive  food,"  was  the  accepted  euphem- 
ism to  designate  nomination  to  the  governorship  of  a  province, 
a  city,  or  a  fortress.  In  course  of  time  the  phrase  became 
obsolete,  but  until  very  lately  the  idea  still  survived.  When 
the  Grand  Dute  Michael  Paolovitch  (brother  of  Tzar  Nicolas) 


396  RUSSIA   rNDER  THE   TZAB8. 

was  told  that  the  colonel  of  a  regiment  of  guards  had  handed 
over  to  the  regimental  fund  a  sum  of  30,000  roubles,  saved  out 
of  his  allowance  for  supplies,  his  Highness  exclaimed  angrily, 
"  It  was  not  to  pick  up  crumbs  that  a  regiment  was  given  him." 

But  the  appetites  of  the  locusts  who  were  sent  into  the  prov- 
inces to  fatten,  "  growing  by  what  they  fed  on,"  became  so  in- 
satiable that  the  Central  Government,  even  at  a  veiy  early  date, 
began  to  take  alai-m,  the  residue  left  for  purposes  of  State  was 
so  little.  The  check  exercised  by  the  privases — chambers  com- 
posed of  Muscovite  functionaries  {dyaki),  and  themselves  as 
great  thieves  as  the  votvodas — was  quite  illusory,  and  the  Gov- 
ernment were  constrained  to  call  into  existence  local  institu- 
tions for  protection  against  the  dejoredations  of  their  own 
agents. 

The  first  attempt  to  organize  a  system  of  local  self-govern- 
ment was  made  in  the  reign  of  Tzar  John  TV. 

In  the  first  part  of  the  St.  Petersburg  period  of  the  Eussian 
Empire  (the  reign  of  Peter  the  Great),  no  fuiiher  attempt  to 
introduce  self-government  was  possible,  all  the  valid  forces  of 
the  country  being  engaged  in  the  service  of  the  State.  But 
when  a  century  of  progress  had  produced  an  educated  class  the 
attempt  was  renewed,  taking  shape  in  the  so-called  Franchise 
Charter  of  the  Nobility,  granted  by  Catharine  IL  By  this  in- 
strument the  Empress  conferred  on  the  provincial  nobility,  in 
meeting  assembled,  the  right  of  nominating  the  agents  of  the 
local  administration  and  the  magistracy  ;  the  right  of  control- 
ling aU  Government  functionaries,  including  the  govei-nor- 
general  of  the  province  himself,  who  had  to  lay  before  a  com- 
mission of  the  nobility  the  financial  results  of  his  administi'a- 
tion. 

In  seeming,  at  least,  nothing  could  well  bo  more  complete 
than  the  right  of  control,  especially  as  touching  the  provincial 
budget.  Yet  this  function  cotdd  never  be  more  than  a  for- 
mality ;  for  seigncm-s  Hving  amidst  hordes  of  slaves  it  would 
have  been  the  height  of  foUy  to  quan-el  about  a  few  thousand 
roubles  belonging  to  the  "  (Jro^vn  mother  "  with  the  governor 


THE    ZEM3TVO.  297 

of  the  province  and  supreme  commander  of  the  military  forces, 
which  alone  held  in  check  the  multitude  of  serfs  who  cultiva- 
ted theu'  estates.  The  new  svstem  of  aristocratic  self-o-ov- 
ernment  was  really  a  lifeless  institution  from  its  very  incep- 
tion, and  utterly  incapable  of  defending  the  State  from  the 
colossal  depredations  of  its  tchhiuvniks.  It  was  rightly  said 
after  the  Crimean  Avar  that  the  enemies  who  had  vanquished 
the  armies  of  Russia  were  not  the  aUied  forces,  but  her  own 
administi-ators,  fm-nishers,  iind  functionaries. 

When  at  the  conclusion  of  that  contest  a  general  reorganiza- 
tion of  the  national  institutions  was  found  needful,  the  one 
essential  element  for  safeguarding  the  State  to  a  certain  extent 
from  the  immeasurable  voracity  of  its  employes  could  not  be 
overlooked.  To  this  end  some  sort  of  local  representative 
government  was  clearly  indispensable.  Hence,  next  to  the 
emancipation  of  the  serfs,  the  most  pressing  reform  was  that 
of  the  Zemstvo,  and  of  ail  the  institutions  reformed  during  the 
first  years  of  the  second  Alexander's  reign  none  has  suffered 
relatively  so  little  from  the  subsequent  ferocious  reaction  as 
the  new  Zemstvo. 


n. 

The  decision  being  taken  to  establish  a  system  of  local  self- 
government  as  an  absolute  necessity,  a  measiu-e  to  this  effect 
was  introduced  in  1864.  But  care  was  taken  not  to  administer 
it  in  too  large  a  dose,  the  more  especially  as  reactionary  \dews 
were  ah-eady  beginning  to  prevail.  The  part  assigned  to  the 
Zemstvo  in  local  affairs  was,  in  effect,  very  Hmited.  Tliey 
could  only  deal  with  twenty-two  millions  (roubles)  of  tlie  pro- 
vincial revenues,  and  out  of  this  sum  they  had  to  support  a 
variety  of  hea\y  extraneous  charges — keep  ban-acks  in  repair, 
feed  soldiers,  pay  the  cost  of  militaiy  conscrip-ions,  subsidize 
the  imperial  ports,  and  meet  other  demands  of  the  same  sort. 
These  requii-ements,  which  had  nothing  to  do  with  local  {^ov- 


298  RUSSIA   UNDER   THE   TZARS. 

eriiment,  absorbed  the  lion's  share  of  the  local  revenues,  and 
left  the  Zemstvo  only  f om-  milhons  for  pui-poses  within  their 
ovm  discretion,  and  in  which  they  had  any  dh-ect  interest- 
schools,  sanitation,  economic  enterprises,  and  so  forth.  It  was 
not  much,  and  if  the  Zemstvo  were  to  do  any  good  it  could 
hardly  have  been  less. 

This  restriction  was  a  desire  to  hinder  the  Zemstvo  from  dis- 
playing too  much  activity  in  the  domain  of  finance.  To  pre- 
vent them  from  trespassing  on  the  domain  of  pohtics  measui-es 
equally  efficacious  were  taken. 

Their  sessions  were  very  shoi-t,  and  held  at  long  intervals. 
The  deputies  could  meet  only  once  a  year— the  distiict  Zemstvo 
sitting  for  a  fortnight,  the  provincial  Zemstvo  three  weeks. 
This  scaicely  afforded  them  time  to  discuss  general  questions 
and  give  then-  instinictions  to  the  onprah,  an  executive  commis- 
sion appointed  by  each  Zemstvo  to  look  after  matters  in  the 
intervals  between  their  sessions. 

In  some  particulars,  indeed,  the  system  of  self-government 
organized  in  1864  was  infeiior  to  the  aristocratic  charter  of 
Catharine  11.     So  far  from  controUing  the  governor-general, 
the  governor-general  controls  them,  and  in  the  most  absolute 
manner.    He  audits  their  accounts,  and  without  his  permission 
the  proceedings  and  discussions  of   the  Zemstvo  cannot  be 
made  public.     He  can  intei-vene  at  any  moment  and  suspend 
by  a  word  any  measure  which,  in  his  opinion,  is  not  in  con- 
formity with  tbe  general  interests  and  utihty  of  the  State, 
that  is  to  say,  which  does  not  precisely  please  him.     True,  this 
veto  io  merely  suspension,  and  the  Zemstvo  may  appeal  against 
it  to  the  senate  ;  but  as  the  local  parhaments  meet  only  once  a 
year,  a  resolution  tabooed  by  a  governor  cannot,  in  any  event, 
be  put  in  force  for  a  twelvemonth— even  if  the  senate  should 
grant  his  decision  at  once,  and  not  keep  the  matter  in  suspense 
two  or  three   years.      In  questions   of   local  administration, 
which  do  not  admit  of  delay,  the  governor's  veto  is  practically 

absolute. 

To  render  the  dependence  of  the  Zemstvo  on  the  Govern- 


THE   ZEMSTVO.  299 

ment  still  more  complete  they  were  deprived  of  a  right  for  • 
merly  enjoyed  by  theu*  predecessors  of  the  nobility.  They 
could  not  ajipoint  the  chiefs  of  the  inferior  administration — 
ispi'avnik — the  right  of  appointment  being  vested  in  the  gov- 
ernors. The  Zemstvo,  moreover,  have  no  executive  agents. 
Whatever  they  want  done  must  be  done  by  agents  of  the  Gov- 
ernment, who  give  them  much  trouble,  particularly  in  anything 
which  concerns  finance.  The  collection  of  the  taxes  assigned 
to  the  Zemstvo,  being  for  the  agents  of  the  Imperial  Treasury 
only  a  secondary  service,  and,  so  to  speak,  a  work  of  com- 
plaisance and  supererogation,  is  badly  done.  The  sums  due 
from  pubHc  properties  as  well  as  from  great  landowners  re- 
main outstanding,  and  aiTears  accumulate  in  all  directions,  to 
the  great  annoyance  and  inconvenience  of  the  Zemstvo. 

But  to  return  to  the  subject  more  especially  before  us — the 
precautions  taken  to  prevent  the  Zemstvo  from  meddling  with 
politics.  One  of  these  precautions  is  the  denial  to  them  of  the 
right — if  so  modest  a  privilege  can  be  called  a  right — of  petition- 
ing the  Tzar,  a  right  fully  enjoyed  by  the  assemblies  of  nobles. 
They  are  not  allowed,  in  fact,  to  take  the  initiative  in  any  ques- 
tion of  public  utility  whatever.  They  cannot  make  their 
voices  heard  anywhere  but  in  waiting-rooms  of  the  Minister, 
who  is  theii*  master,  and  nine  times  out  of  ten  does  not  deign 
to  honor  them  with  a  reply. 

But  the  new  system  of  self-government,  whatever  may  be 
its  faults,  had  one  incomparable  advantage  over  the  old  sys- 
tem— it  was  not  a  fraud.  The  law  of  emancipation  destroyed 
slavery.  It  made  nobles  and  peasants  fellow-citizens  of  the  same 
country  and  equal  before  the  law.  It  was  impossible  to  limit 
self-government  to  a  single  class  ;  that  would  have  been  to 
revive  the  old  serfage  in  a  new  shape.  AU  classes  had  thus 
their  part,  albeit  the  division  was  flagrantly  unequal. 

The  deputies  of  the  Zemstvo  are  chosen  by  the  order  which 
they  represent.  The  peasants,  the  towns,  and  the  nobility, 
elect  their  representatives  separately  in  separate  electoral 
meetings,  which  differ  somewhat  in  their  composition.     The 


300  RUSSIA   UNDEK   THE   TZARS. 

number  of  the  deputies  of  each  order  is  a  fixed  quantity,  and 
nothing  can  be  more  unfair  than  the  arrangement  for  the  dis- 
tribution of  seats,  Avhich  is  all  in  favor  of  the  nobility.  The 
peasants,  who  count  sixty  milHons  and  pay  83  per  cent,  of  the 
taxes  (90  per  cent,  according  to  the  calculations  of  Prince 
Vassiltchekoff),  ai-e  represented,  in  the  mean,  by  38-6  per  cent, 
of  the  total  number  of  deputies.  The  landowning  class, 
numbering  only  a  miUion  individuals  and  contributing  only 
7  per  cent,  to  the  national  revenue,  elect  46-2  per  cent,  of  the 
members  of  the  Zemstvo,  while  the  shai-e  of  the  thii'd  estate— 
the  toTVTas — is  15-2  per  cent. 

In  many  provinces— the  eight  central  provinces,  for  in- 
stance—the anomaly  is  stiU  gi'eater  ;  93,000  great  landowners 
being  represented  by  1,817  deputies,  while  six  million  peas- 
ants are  represented  by  only  1,597. 

On  the  whole,  therefore,  the  nobihty  hold  nearly  one-half  of 
the  seats  in  our  local  parliaments.  But  this  proportion  is  far 
from  being  the  measui-e  of  their  influence,  especially  in  the 
provincial  Zemstvo,  where  the  election  is  double.  The  village 
ancients,  who  for  the  most  part  represent  the  peasants,  are  ad- 
ministratively subordinate  to  the  Marshal  of  the  Nobility,  who 
is  both  chief  of  the  bui'eau  which  regulates  rural  affairs  and 
president  of  the  Zemstvo. 

And,  finally,  in  order  to  exclude  from  the  body  the  more 
democratic  element  of  the  smaller  landowners — the  Uttle 
nobility — the  electoral  qualification  was  made  inordinately 
high :  the  possession  of  from  eighty  to  one  hundi-ed  and 
twenty  acres  in  tliickly  populated  districts,  and  eight  hundred 
in  localities  more  spai'sely  peopled.  By  this  expedient  the 
number  of  voters  belonging  to  the  more  highly  educated  of  the 
ai-istocratic  class  is  kept  very  low  ;  they  are  rather  a  coterie  of 
personal  friends  and  acquaintances  than  a  body  of  electors. 

In  point  of  fact,  therefore,  the  self-governing  scheme  of 
1864  placed  the  nation  under  the  tutelage  of  the  privileged 
class,  or,  more  correctly,  imder  the  richer  and  more  cou- 
eervativc  of  tliat  class,  to  tiie  exclusion  of  its  more  liberal  and 


THE   ZEIISTVO.  301 

progressive  element,  tlie  inferior  nobUity.  It  is  difficult  to 
imagine  how  INIr.  Valouzev  could  have  desired  anything  less 
liberal  or  more  capable  of  converting  self-government  into  an 
instrument  of  reaction  and  an  obstacle  to  reform.  But  the 
Government,  after  aU,  was  out  in  its  calculations.  The  occa- 
sions on  which  the  aristocratic  members  of  the  Zemstvo  have 
tried  to  use  their  power  for  the  profit  of  the  privileged  order 
to  which  they  belong  may  be  counted  on  the  fingers  of  the  two 
hands.  One  of  the  first  proceedings  of  the  Zemstvo  was  an 
earnest  effort  to  give  more  seats  to  the  jDeasants — an  effort 
that  the  Government,  which  is  always  proclaiming  its  partiality 
for  the  peasantrs',  of  course  opposed.  And  when  at  a  later 
date  (1871)  the  Government  asked  the  Zemstvo  of  the  thirty- 
four  provinces  for  their  advice  concerning  certain  changes  in 
the  incidence  of  taxation,  all  the  thu-ty-four  pronounced  for 
the  aboKtion  of  privilege,  advocated  a  lightening  of  the  heavy 
charges  laid  on  the  peasantry,  and  recommended  the  adoption 
of  a  scale  of  taxes  proportioned  to  the  means  of  those  on 
whom  they  were  imposed. 

Oirr  Zemstvo,  on  the  other  hand,  are  open  to  the  reproach 
of  an  excessive  deference  to  authority  and  a  want  of  ci\'ic 
courage.  The  poHtical  theories  of  those  of  their  leaders  who 
have  had  the  boldness  to  expound  them  in  papers  and  pam- 
phlets, printed  abroad,  are  far  from  being  models  of  political 
wisdom.  Then."  projects  of  economic  reform  which  have  been 
allowed  to  see  the  hght  are  the  merest  paUiatives.  I  have  no 
desire  to  sound  the  praises  of  our  local  parUaments.  But 
nobody  can  deny  that  they  have  shown  a  praiseworthy  activity, 
or  that,  at  the  beginning  of  their  career,  before  the  adminis- 
tration laid  its  hands  on  theii'  throats,  the  Russian  Zemstvo 
labored  with  all  zeal  and  devotion  for  the  good  of  the  people, 
and  not  for  the  benefit  of  the  class  which  the  majority  of  them 
represented.  In  the  modest  sphere  assigned  to  them,  more- 
over, they  displaced  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  real  needs 
of  the  country  ;  and  the  measures  they  adopted  proved  them 
to  be  possessed  of  soimd  sense  and  practical  \'iews.     This  they 


302  KUSSIA    UNDER   THE   TZAES. 

showed  by  taking  so  mucli  to  heart,  and  at  once,  the  question 
which  is  above  all  others  and  on  which  ever^ihing  else  de- 
I^ends — popular  instruction,  whereby  alone  the  masses  can  be 
rendered  capable  of  judging  and  acting  for  themselves.  Yv^'e 
have  seen  how  energetically  they  wrought  to  organize  primary 
schools,  and  how  strenuously  they  defended  their  work  against 
the  attacks  of  the  Minister  of  Instruction.  But  the  Zemstvo 
did  not  limit  themselves  to  the  organization  of  piimaiT  educa- 
tion. They  tried  to  create  secondaiy  and  professional  schools 
in  order  to  bring  within  reach  of  the  masses  technical  instruc- 
tion and  a  knowledge  of  practical  science.  They  desired  to 
co-operate  with  private  effort — of  which  instances  are  frequent 
in  Russia — in  the  foundation  and  endowment  of  educational 
institutions  of  this  class,  and  did  space  permit  I  could  adduce 
many  other  proofs  of  the  energy  and  enterprise  of  our  local 
parliaments.  They  have  done  everything,  in  fact,  that  with 
their  limited  resources  it  was  possible  to  do.  The  Zemstvo 
were  the  first  to  give  to  the  peasantry  some  sort  of  medical 
care,  with  which,  up  to  that  time,  they  had  been  no  better  pro- 
vided than  African  savages.  They  engaged  doctors  for  coun- 
try districts,  giving  the  preference  to  women  and  competent 
dispensers.  Where  they  could  they  built  hospitals.  They  did 
all  in  their  power,  too,  to  aid  economic  enterprises  which 
j)romised  to  better  the  wi'etched  lot  of  the  peasantry.  The  co- 
operative cheese  factories  of  Vereshaghin,  the  co-operative 
enterprises  of  Shapiro,  and  many  other  similar  undertakings, 
received  from  them  generous  encouragement  and  substantial 
support.  Among  other  good  works  the  Zemstvo  founded 
rural  banks,  which,  by  making  loans  to  the  jieasants  at  easy 
rates  of  interest,  rendered  them  independent  of  blood-sucking 
usurers.  They  advanced  money  for  the  purchase  by  the 
peasantry  of  small  allotments  of  land,  and  introduced  the 
practice  of  fire  ass.ui'ance.  They  made  every  effort  to  protect 
the  rural  popijlation  from  intimidation  on  the  part  of  the  in- 
ferior agents  of  the  administration  at  election  times  ;  to  safe- 
guard their  home-life  from  the  meddlesomeness  of  the  civil 


THE   ZE118TVO.  303 

ouriadnik,  au  inferior  order  of  policeman,  yet  wiili  extensive 
powers  ;  and  their  souls  from  the  spiritual  ouriadnik,  the  pope 
— the  priest-chicaner  and  informer,  who  is  continually  appeal- 
ing to  the  police  for  aid  in  restraining  his  flock  from  lapsing 
into  heresy  and  schism. 

In  all  this  useful  yet  moderate  activity  the  greatest  obstacles 
encountex'ed  by  the  Zemstvo,  were  the  indolence  of  office  and 
the  open  ill-wiil  of  the  administration.  To  secure  j^assable 
dispensers,  special  schools  were  necessarj',  a  project  which  at 
once  roused  the  spectre  of  propagandism;  and  in  October, 
1866,  a  law  was  passed  making  nominations  to  the  schools 
contingent  on  the  approval  of  the  governors-general.  If  it 
were  a  question  of  bujdng  a  large  lot  of  seigniorial  land,  there 
was  always  some  zealot  of  order  to  decry  the  proceeding  as 
part  of  a  confiscatory  scheme  for  the  benefit  of  the  peasants 
and  the  subversion  of  the  existing  regime.  If  it  were  a  ques- 
tion of  making  head  against  plagues  of  locusts  and  other  in- 
sectivorous dejjredators,  and  engaging  in  the  work  the  com- 
bined Zemstvo  of  an  infected  district,  the  matter  would  be  al- 
lowed to  drag  on  for  months,  for  years  even,  before  the  neces- 
sary authorization  could  be  obtained — so  great  is  the  dread  of 
the  Government  that  if  once  the  Zemstvo  of  several  provinces 
come  together  they  will  take  to  political  discussion. 

Despite  obstacles,  however,  the  Zemstvo  made  a  beginning 
in  all  these  things;  and  if  they  have  not  been  able  to  do  any- 
thing great,  if  they  have  not  succeeded  in  providing  the  i^cas- 
ants  with  good  schools  and  efficient  doctors,  nor  in  assisting 
the  progressive  impoverishment  of  the  masses,  the  fault  is  cer- 
tainly attiibutable  neither  to  want  of  will  nor  lack  of  capacity 
and  business  aptitude,  but  to  the  narrowness  of  their  field  of 
action,  and  the  severity  of  the  resti'ictions  imposed  upon  them 
by  the  State,  restrictions  which,  from  the  very  inception  of  lo- 
cal self-government,  has  been  gi'adually  intensified  and  in- 
creased. 


304  RUSSIA    UNDER  THE   TZARS. 


m. 

M.  Leroy  Beaiilieu,  in  his  chapter  on  the  Zemstvo,  graphically 
describes,  from  his  own  personal  observation,  the  enthusiasm 
with  which  the  decree  of  1864,  for  the  organization  of  local 
parhaments,  was  received  by  the  Russian  people.  Next  to  the 
emancijpation  of  the  serfs,  there  was  no  reform  that  gave  so 
much  satisfaction  and  kindled  so  many  hopes  as  the  establish- 
ment of  the  Zemstvo.  The  sagacious  French  "Riiter  is,  how- 
ever, mistaken  in  saying  that  Russians,  in  the  fei-vor  of  their 
excitement,  overlooked  the  shortcomings  of  the  new  measure. 
A  reference  to  the  democratic  papers  of  the  time  is  sufficient 
to  show  that  the  more  advanced  party  of  society  were  fully 
alive  to  its  serious  and  manifold  defects.  And  if  the  bulk  of 
the  lettered  pubhc,  httle  conversant  with  practical  questions, 
overrated  the  meiits  of  the  measure,  the  men  of  the  Zemstvo 
— the  Zemzy  themselves — were  far  from  sharing  in  their 
illusion. 

In  and  about  the  year  18G0,  the  delegates  of  the  nobility, 
who  afterwai-ds  furnished  the  largest  contingent  to  the  Zem- 
stvo— including  those  of  St.  Petersburg — expressed  on  several 
occasions,  in  their  addresses  and  petitions,  a  desire  for  a  meas- 
ure of  local  self-government,  much  more  extensive  and  effi- 
cient than  that  which,  fom-  years  later,  was  gi*anted.  These 
men,  it  may  be  supposed,  could  not  possibly  be  blind  to  the 
time  character  of  the  reform  of  18G4,  yet  they,  of  all  other 
people,  were  the  most  deceived  as  to  its  true  character  and 
probable  residts. 

The  readiness  of  a  certain  class  of  Russians  to  be  "  thankful 
for  small  mercies,"  and  welcome  with  joy  concessions  which  a 
man  of  the  west  would  simply  despise,  is  a  noteworthy  feature 
of  the  national  character,  contrasting  cui-iously  \n.i\i  the  reverse 
tendency  of  another  party,  towards  absolute  Utoj^ianism — a 
pai-ty  which  desii-es  to  change  everything  radically  and  at  once, 
as  by  the  stroke  of  a  ^vizard's  wand,  without  gianting  the  least 


THE    ZKMSTTO.  •  305 

indulgence  to  this  decrepit  old  world,  or  considering  its  wants, 
weaknesses,  and  long-confirmed  habits. 

"  One  of  the  anomalies  of  Eussian  life,"  is  the  stereotyped 
explanation  of  this  phenomenon.  But  do  not  these  flagTant 
contrasts  all  aiise  from  the  same  source — the  ardent  desire, 
now  latent,  now  acute,  to  do  something  for  the  weKare  of  the 
people  which  is  seething  at  the  present  time  in  the  conscience 
of  instructed  Eussia  ?  And  the  lions  that  stand  in  the  way 
may  surely  be  vanquished  by  courage  and  devotion.  There 
hare  been  di'eamers  in  Eussia  who  hoped  to  metamorphose  the 
country  by  means  of  schools,  model  farms,  and  mutual  help 
societies,  just  as  there  have  been  socialist  visionaries  who  hoped 
to  bring  back  the  age  of  gold  by  the  magic  of  a  revolutionary 
propaganda. 

This  facvdty  for  dreaming,  which  renders  people  unfit  to  ap- 
preciate hard  facts  and  deal  with  the  things  of  this  world,  has 
greatly  impeded  social  and  pohtical  progress.  Perhaj)s  the 
time  may  come  when  it  will  prove  a  blessing.  The  futui-e  -wlU 
show.  In  the  meantime  we  have  to  note  a  striking  example  of 
its  baneful  results — the  creation  of  a  party  which  in  absm-dity 
and  self-illusion  does  not  yield  even  to  the  Slavophihsm  of 
Aksakoff  and  KhomiakofE — the  party,  once  sufficiently  numer- 
ous, of  which  the  old  Slavophile,  Kosheleff,  was  the  leading 
spu-it,  and  whose  fundamental  idea  was  a  combination  of  rep- 
resentative government  below  with  autocracy  above.  As  well 
try  to  unite  fire  and  water,  or  keep  iron  hot  in  fresh-fallen 
snow. 

The  Zemstvo  is  not  a  nu'al  commune.  It  cannot,  like  the 
mir,  sequester  itseK  in  its  microscopic  world,  hapjDy  if  only  left 
in  peace.  A  Zemstvo  represents  a  province,  often  half  as  large 
as  Spain,  and  with  a  population  equal  to  that  of  Wiirtemberg 
or  Denmark.  A  thousand  interests  concern  it,  a  thousand  ties 
unite  it  with  neighboring  provinces.  At  every  step  the  Zem- 
stvo come  in  contact  with  agents  of  the  State.  Having  to  deal 
with  a  twentieth  part  of  the  provincial  revenues,  they  cannot 
regai'd  with  indifiference  the  stupidity  and  ingrained  incapacity 


306  RUSSIA    UNDER   TIIK   TZAKS. 

of  the  tchinovnik,  who  dispose  of  the  remaining  nineteen-twen- 
tieths.  The  wish  to  restrain  the  bureaucracy,  to  deprive  them 
more  and  more  of  the  management  of  pubhc  affau-s,  is  inher- 
ent in  any  system  of  representative  government.  The  greater 
the  zeal  of  the  Zemstvo  for  the  common  weal,  the  greater  must 
be  then-  desu-e  to  lessen  stiU  fui-ther  the  power  of  officialism, 
beginning  with  provincial  administration,  going  on  to  regional 
business,  to  finish  by  controlling  and  managing  the  State  itself. 
Political  reorganization,  representative  institutions  on  the 
Evu-opean  model,  are  the  ends  towards  which  self-government 
as  inevitably  tends  as  a  round  stone  rolls  down  an  inclined 
plane,  and  whatever  may  be  the  ideas  of  Mr.  Kosheleff  and  the 
Slavophilized  Zemzij,  nothing  can  arrest  its  coui'se. 

This  the  Central  Government,  being  a  government  of  tchino- 
vnilcs,  are  unable  to  comprehend.  But  the  Zemstvo,  as  other 
Russian  representative  bodies  have  done,  do  not  fail,  on  occa- 
sion, to  make  the  administration  acquainted  with  then-  views. 
In  1860,  and  again  in  1862,  the  Assembly  of  Nobles  openly  ex- 
pressed theu'  desii-e  for  constitutional  reform.  The  dispersion 
of  the  Assembly  of  St.  Petersburg— one  of  the  boldest  in  the 
land— and  the  exile  of  the  principal  leaders  of  the  nobility  of 
Tver,  are  fm-ther  instances  in  point.  But  it  is  unfortunately 
a  habit  of  Russian  citizens  to  wait  for  favorable  opportrmities 
for  expressing  then-  opinions  instead  of  making  them.  The 
nobihty  waited  for  the  advent  to  power  of  Loris  Melikoff  to 
offer  some  protest,  and  the  St.  Petersburg  Assembly  alone  had 
the  hardihood  to  applaud  the  frankly  Hberal  speech  of  ]\Ii'. 
Platinoff,*  Marshal  of  the  Nobility  of  Zarskoi  Selo,  when  he 
demanded  representative  institutions  and  constitutional  guar- 
antees for  the  entire  body  of  citizens.  Yet,  after  all,  they  liad 
not  the  coui-age  to  signify  theu-  approval  of  the  speech  by  a 
formal  resolution. 

The  Zemstvo  showed  more  courage,  though  by  no  means  too 
much.     They  have  taken  frequent  occasion  to  express,  under 

*  See  ou  Ibis  poiut  M.  Leroy  Beaiilieu,  vol.  ii. 


THE    ZEMSTVO.  307 

divers  pretexts,  tlieir  constitutional  aspu-ations.  Sometimes  an 
appeal  from  tlie  Government  to  society  for  help  in  the  contest 
"with  terrorism  has  afforded  the  ojiportuuity;  somethnes  it  has 
been  fonnd  on  the  presentation  of  an  address  to  the  Emperor 
after  an  attempt  on  his  Hfe;  or  perhaps  in  a  request  from  the 
Government  for  information  or  advice  touching  some  proposed 
local  measure.  Copies  of  these  documents  may  be  found 
either  in  the  censiu'ed  or  the  clandestine  Press.  According  to 
the  organ  of  the  Zemstvo,  edited  by  MM.  Koshcleff  and  Ska- 
Ion,  there  have  been  presented  to  the  Government  since  the 
beginning  of  the  revolutionary  period  fifteen  addresses  de- 
manding constitutional  reform — three  in  1878-79,  twelve  in 
1881.  During  the  existence  of  the  Commission  of  Experts  the 
greater  part  of  the  Zemstvo  expressed  their  desu-e  for  a  Con- 
stituent Assembly,  representative  of  the  cntu*e  country'.  The 
majority  of  these  declarations  are  expressed  in  obscure  and  in- 
dii'ect  terms,  bordering  sometimes  on  servility.  Too  often 
these  v.orthy  gentlemen  of  the  Zemstvo,  intent  on  pleasing  the 
police-ri  Iden  government,  describe  the  liberty  of  the  future  as 
the  faithf id  servant  of  the  Third  Section  and  hold  before  it  the 
attractive  perspective  of  a  common  crusade  against  sedition. 
But  happily  not  aU  the  Zemstvo  hold  the  same  language.  Kus- 
sia  will  always  remember  with  respect  the  names  of  Noudatoff 
and  Idanoff  of  Samara,  Petrounkevitch  of  Tchernigoff,  Net- 
chaeff  of  Novgorod,  Vouberg  of  Taurida,  Gordienko  of  Kliar- 
koff,  and  others  who  have  had  the  coiu'age  of  their  opinions 
and,  in  some  instances,  paid  for  their  temerity  with  long  terms 
of  exile. 

I  make  no  citations  from  these  addresses  and  speeches'  Eng- 
lish readers  would  find  them  modest  enough  in  aU  conscience. 
I  wUl  merely  add  that  in  Russia  they  have  a  more  than  ordi- 
nary significance.  They  display  civic  courage  for  which,  un- 
happily, Russians  in  general  are  not  distinguished.  Even-body 
knows  that  for  every  sjieech,  like  that  of  M.  Noudatoff,  and  for 
every  address,  lilce  that  of  the  Tchernigoff  Zemstvo,  there  are 
ten  which  remain  inarticulate — hidden   in  petto — and  that  if 


308  KUSSIA   UNDEK   THE   TZARS. 


rv. 


The  GoveiTiment  understands  and  lias  always  understood 
this.  It  is  not  deceived  as  to  the  real  sentiments  of  the  Zem- 
stvo.  The  Zemstvo  is  its  natural  enemy.  The  bureaucracy 
hate  it  all  the  more  that  they  are  jDOwerless  to  destroy  it,  and 
feel  instinctively  that  sooner  or  later — if  not  to-day,  then  to- 
morrow— they  will  have  to  yield  it  precedence. 

There  is  nothing  sur[:)rising  in  the  fact  that,  when  the  forces 
of  reaction  began  to  gain  ground,  the  bureaucracy  should  de- 
sii'e  measm-es  for  keeping  the  enemy  in  check,  for  preventing 
the  possibility  of  the  Zemstvo  taking  root  in  the  sphere  of  its 
activity,  or  acquiring  a  moral  influence  over  public  opinion  in 
general,  or  uniting  together  and  making  conibined  manifesta- 
tions and  protests  against  the  Government. 

But  as  the  Zemstvo  were  established  in  ISGi,  and  the  reac- 
tion began  in  1864,  it  is  evident  that  our  yovmg  representa- 
tive institution  has  had  a  hard  Ufe.  Let  me  enumerate  some 
of  the  principal  laws — all  of  them  premeditated  strokes — 
which,  since  that  time,  have  been  launched  against  the  Zem- 
stvo. The  first  affected  the  most  vital  piinciple  of  public 
finance.  The  regulation  of  1864  conferred  on  the  Zemstvo 
the  right  of  levying  taxes.  But  to  impose  additional  burdens 
on  the  already  overcharged  peasants  was  exti-emely  difficult 
and  painful  for  an  institution  whose  chief  aim  was  to  better 
the  peasants'  condition.  It  was  an  expedient,  moreover,  not 
likely  to  be  very  productive.  The  only  means  of  ensuring 
financial  prosperity  was  for  the  Zemstvo  to  find  new  sources 
of  revenue.  They  thought  they  had  found  them  in  charges 
on  industrial  undertakings.  Nothing  could  have  been  wiser 
or  more  just,  and  the  Zemstvo  prospered  accordingly.  Yet 
the  taxes  they  imposed  were  very  light  compared  with  those 
imposed  on  agriculture.  In  some  pro\dnces  industry'  paid  on 
a  scale  equal  to  an  income  tax  of  two  roubles  per  thousand, 
while  aginculture  paid  eleven  and  a  half  times  as  much.     But 


THE    ZEMSTVO.  309 

it  was  not  long  before  Governmeut  came  to  the  rescue  of 
tlie  privileged,  and  by  the  law  of  November  19,  1864,  put  an 
end  to  the  equitable  and  successful  system  of  finance  which 
the  Zemstvo  had  introduced. 

The  famous  measiu'e  in  question  interdicted  absolutely  the 
lev}-ing  of  taxes  on  the  capital  or  profits  of  industrial  enterprises. 
As  a  set-off  the  Zemstvo  were  allowed  to  i)ut  an  insignificant 
duty  on  trade  certificates,  and  lay  a  trifling  rate  on  factory 
buildings.  This  was  to  re-establish  an  unjust  exemption  and 
virtually  ruin  the  Zemstvo.  The  law  of  November  19th  was 
looked  upon  by  the  friends  of  the  institution  as  indirectly  in- 
volving the  destruction  of  local  parliaments,  and  deliberately 
designed  to  render  them  both  powerless  and  unpopular.  So 
heavy  was  the  blow  that  over  half  the  Zemstvo  joined  in  a 
chorus  of  indignant  protests.  The  Government  retaliated  by 
dissolving  the  Zemstvo  of  St.  Petersburg,  and  all  the  others 
laid  down  their  anns. 

The  year  following — seven  months  later — came  the  law  of 
June  13th,  which  sapped  the  Zemstvo  on  the  side  of  their 
poHtical  importance.  No  longer  content  with  controlling  them 
through  the  provincial  governors,  the  Government  resolved  to 
have  an  agent  in  the  very  heart  of  the  citadel.  The  chairman 
of  the  Zemstvo  ceased  to  be  a  mere  director  of  debates.  He 
became  at  once  president  and  chief.  The  Minister  nominated 
him,  and  only  the  Minister  can  depose  him.  He  is  a  mere 
ichinovnik  whom  the  new  law  empowers  to  inteiTuj)t  any 
speech  at  discretion,  or  stop  any  motion,  discussion,  or  reso- 
lution which  in  his  opinion  might  give  umbrage  to  the  Govern- 
ment. 

Between  these  two  laws — one  of  the  economic  order,  tlie 
other  of  the  political  order — the  Zemstvo  were  held  as  in  a 
vise.  The  other  proscriptions  concern  only  matters  of  second- 
ary importance.  By  the  regulations  of  1864  the  different 
Zemstvo  could,  in  cases  of  emergency,  enter  into  communica- 
tions with  each  other,  always  provided,  of  coui-se,  that  the 
Government   did   not   object.     But   on  May   4,    1867,   there 


310  RUSSIA    UNDER   THE   TZARS. 

appeared  an  "  insti-uction "  which  explained  that  this  clause 
must  be  construed  in  a  strict!}'  Pickwickian  sense— that  the 
Zemstvo  would  not  be  allowed  to  communicate  with  each 
other  in  any  case,  let  it  be  as  urgent  as  it  might.  The  strin- 
gency of  the  Government  on  this  point  was  so  excessive  that, 
when  a  plague  broke  out  in  Astrakan  and  the  local  Zemstvo 
asked  leave  to  confer  with  the  Zemstvo  of  neighboring  prov- 
inces as  to  the  best  means  of  meeting  the  emergency,  the 
request  was  refused. 

The  "mstruction"  as  to  the  printing  of  the  Zcmstvo's 
accounts  and  the  reports  of  their  proceedings  may  also  be 
noted  as  a  cui-iosity  of  Russian  administration.  It  explained 
that  these  reports  might  indeed  be  printed,  but  only  as  many 
copies  were  to  be  issued  as  there  were  members  of  the  Zem- 
stvo— not  one  more. 

It  is  evident  that  with  a  code  of  laws  hke  these,  to  which 
must  be  added  the  right  exercised  by  the  Government  of 
arresting  and  exihng  any  de]iuty  whom  it  may  dislike  or  mis- 
ti-ust,  the  utihty  of  our  local  parhaments  is  attenuated  almost 
to  notliingness.  In  these  cu'cumstances  it  is  not  surprising 
that  the  public  should  have  lost  all  interest  in  an  institution 
which  at  the  outset  they  so  enthusiastically  acclaimed.  The 
best  men  have  withdrawn  altogether  from  the  Zemstvo,  and 
are  too  often  succeeded  by  intriguers  and  self-seekers.  Mem- 
bers are  slack  in  their  attendance,  and  it  not  unfrequently 
happens  that  a  session  cannot  be  held  for  want  of  a  quorum. 
The  discussions  have  degenerated  into  formahties.  Nobody 
takes  an  interest  in  them,  for  aU  know  that  any  proposal  for 
the  benefit  of  the  people  will  be  tabooed  by  the  Government. 
The  Zemstvo  simply  vegetate  in  sordid  abandonment. 

But  they  still  exist  in  a  fashion,  and  sei*ve  as  a  framework 
capable  of  being  filled  up  at  any  moment  with  solid  material ; 
and,  should  a  crisis  come  to  pass,  the  Zemstvo  may  exercise  a 
decisive  influence.  The  Government  fears  them,  and  would 
gladly  destroy  thcni  utterly.  The  celebrated  commission  under 
the  presidency  of  General  Kakhanoff,  the  little  Ijykurgus  of 


THE   ZEMSTVO.  311 

the  reaction,  proposed  so  to  raise  the  voting  qualification  that 
the  suffrage  be  restricted  to  the  largest  landowners,  who  were 
among  the  most  inveterate  of  the  anti- abolitionists.  This,  as 
Ivussian  jjapers  have  rightly  said,  would  be  to  re-estabhsh  the 
bureaucratic  regime  in  all  its  pui'ity.  It  would  not  even  be  an 
ohgarchy,  for  Russia  possesses  no  aristocracy  in  the  true  sense 
of  the  word.  Count  Tolstoi's  oligarchic  dreams  are  no  less 
absiu'd  than  the  clerical  dreams  of  his  worthy  colleague, 
Pohedinostzeo.  Our  great  landowners,  who  spend  their  Hves 
in  the  cai^ital,  occupying  nearly  always  places  in  the  adminis- 
tration, are  an  element  altogether  heterogeneous  and  strange 
in  the  locahties  to  which  they  belong. 

Not  desiring  to  repeat  the  penance  I  have  had  to  perform 
for  my  incredulity  as  to  making  the  clergy  the  directors  of 
primary  education,  I  refrain  from  saying  that  the  project  in 
question  is  impossible.  The  reaction  has  become  so  reckless 
that  it  is  ready  to  attempt  even  the  impossible.  I  will  say 
only  that,  in  view  of  the  general  impoverishment  of  the 
country,  the  definitive  abolition  of  the  Zemstvo  (or  a  measure 
equivalent  to  its  abolition)  wotdd  have  the  most  disastrous 
effects,  and  might  not  improbably  be  the  preciu'sor  of  national 
bankitiptcy. 

"  If  anybody  would  know  the  incapacity  of  our  bureaucracy 
to  administer  any  pubUc  affaii's  whatever,"  wrote  an  old  mem- 
ber of  the  Zemstvo,  in  a  pamphlet  printed  not  very  long  ago, 
"  I  would  recommend  him  to  study  the  pajDers  pubUshed  by  the 
eai-her  Zemstvo  on  the  state  in  which  they  found  the  inter- 
esis  confided  to  their  charge.  According  to  these  reports, 
especially  when  read  between  the  lines,  the  condition  of  the 
country  coold  hardly  have  been  worse  if  it  had  just  been 
wasted  by  a  foreign  invasion.  Instead  of  stores  of  grain  the 
Zemstvo  found  in  one  place  only  empty  barracks  ;  in  another 
they  foimd  no  trace  of  a  school  whatever,  although  it  was  en- 
tered in  the  reports  of  the  tchinovniks  as  possessing  several 
schools,  for  the  maintenance  of  which  they  had  received  yearly 
grants  of  money.    In  another,  again,  had  disappeared  a  bridge, 


312  EUSSIA   UNDER   THE   TZARS. 

nobody  knew  exactly  when,  which  for  years  past  had  required 
periodical  repaii's.  In  still  another  locality  the  same  fate  had 
befallen  an  hospital.  The  report  of  the  commission  of  the 
Zemstvo  of  Perm  thus  describes  the  state  of  affaii's  when  they 
first  took  them  in  hand  :  "  We  examined  the  public  granaries. 
One  was  quite  empty  ;  in  the  other  we  saw  only  a  number  of 
boxes  gnawed  by  rats.  On  inqviiry  we  were  told  that  they  con- 
tained the  confiscated  property  of  some  sectaries.  We  opened 
them.  Instead  of  j^roperty  they  contained  only  rat  nests.  Of 
the  corn  entered  as  being  in  store  there  was  not  a  gi'ain.  The 
funds  assigned  for  supplies  existed  only  on  paper  ;  those  for 
agricidtural  subsidies  the  same.  For  medical  purposes  the 
same,  and  where  hospitals  existed  they  were  in  such  a  state 
that  the  people  fled  from  them  as  if  they  were  slaughter- 
houses" (pp.  3  and  4). 

I  leave  thereaderto  judge  for  himself  what  state  the  finances 
of  Russia  are  likely  to  be  in  when  the  provinces  relapse  into 
theu'  former  condition. 


CHAPTER  XXIX. 

THE   DESPOTISM   AND  THE  PEESS. 
I. 

If  anybody  required  a  thermometer  of  great  sensitiveness, 
showing  at  every  period  and  every  moment  the  variation  in 
the  intensity  of  Eussian  despotism,  he  would  find  it  in  the 
position  of  the  Press.  "  The  liberty  of  the  Press  is  the 
chief  guarantee  of  the  liberty  of  a  country,"  said  Milton. 
With  equal  reason  we  may  affirm  the  opposite — the  existence 
of  a  despotism  depends  on  the  fettering  of  the  Press.  Des- 
potic governments  understand  this.  There  is  no  department 
of  human  activity  which  despots  regard  with  so  much  sus- 
picion as  the  press.  In  Russia,  as  we  have  seen,  the  Govern- 
ment has  not  too  much  love  for  schools  any  more  than  for 
local  parliaments  ;  but  the  Press  is  in  much  worse  case  than 
either  of  them.  Self-government  and  schools  bring  forth 
their  fruits  in  a  time  more  or  less  distant ;  the  Press  acts 
immediately.  The  domains  of  the  schools  and  the  Zemstvos 
are  limited ;  the  Press  commands  the  whole  extent  of  the 
empire.  In  every  other  field  of  action  the  adversary  is 
always  somebody  ;  professors,  members  of  the  Zemstvo,  and 
the  rest,  however  disagreeable  they  may  be,  are  at  least  peo- 
ple, men,  known  personalities.  But  a  writer,  what  is  he  ? 
Perhaps  a  monster  without  law  and  without  faith,  capable 
of  anything.  To  what  purpose  may  he  not  turn  that  mys- 
terious power  which  by  virtue  of  his  venomous  pen  he  wields 
over  the  weak  and  foolish  ? 

On  the  other  hand,  no  human  institution  is  naturally  so 
14 


314  RUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

defenceless  as  the  Press.     In  all  others  thought  and  spirit 
are  more  or  less  intimately  allied  with  matter.    Self-govern- 
ment and  instruction  are  necessary  for  the  State  itself,  for 
its  efficient  working  and  its  material  well-bemg.    But  of  the 
Press  the  State  has  no  need.     True  it  has  recourse  to  the 
printer  for  the  preparation  of  its  official  publications  ;  but 
that  is  not  the  Press.     The  veritable  Press,  the  brain  of  the 
nation,  despotism  can  well  spare  and  still  live,  just  as  cer- 
tain animals  can  survive  for  a  long  time  the  loss  of  a  cerebral 
lobe.     The  Press,  so  to  speak,  is  sublimated  thought,  and 
incapable  of  self-defence.     It  is  the  duty  of  the  other  mem- 
bers of  the  social  body  to  unite  for  the  protection  of  this 
vital  part  of  the  system  ;  if  they  are  incapable  of  doing  this 
the  Press  is  at  the  mercy  of  Power.     The  Government  holds 
it  m  its  grasp,  and  can  either  crush  the  victim  to  death  or 
let  it  live  and  breathe  according  to  its  good  pleasure. 

The  position  of  the  Press  is  thus  an  excellent  thermometer 
for  measuring  at  every  moment  the  intensity  of  despotism. 
From  this  point  of  view  the  history  of  the  relations  of  the 
Russian  Press  and  the  Russian  Government  is  very  interest- 
ing. 

Russia  has  never  known  anything  which  remotely  resem- 
bles the  liberty  of  the  Press  or  tolerance  for  political  and 
religious  ideas.     Peter  the  Great,  whose  reign  was  the  apo- 
gee of  imperial  liberalism,  tortured  and  put  to  death  the 
sectarian  writers  who  wrote  pamphlets  against  his  reforms. 
But  the  Tzar  was  all  in  favor  of  European  culture,  and 
everything  savoring  thereof  passed  the  frontier  without  in- 
spection.   It  is  told  that  when  the  translator  of  Puffendorf's 
"Universal  History"  proposed  to  omit  some  passages  not 
too  complimentary  to  Muscovy,  Peter  gave  him  a  little  pa- 
ternal correction  with  his  famous  cane,  for  showing  so  little 
respect  for  the  great  historian,  and  ordered  the  scribe  to 
print  the  passage  just  as  it  was.     Peter's  successors  followed 
his  example.     They  protected   letters  and  science,   made 


THE    DESPOTISM   Als^D    THE    PEESS.  315 

mezenofs,  founded  academies,  and  established  literary  jour- 
nals. Catharine  II.  j)osed  as  a  literary  character,  wrote 
with  her  own  hand  moral  tales  and  insipid  novels  ''  with  a 
purpose,"  and  deigned  to  plagiarize  Shakespeare's  ''Merry 
Wives  of  "Windsor."  True  the  censorship  existed  at  that 
time,  but  it  was  not  the  heterogenous  body  of  tchinovnihs, 
instinctively  hostile  to  authors  and  letters,  which  it  has  since 
become.  Savants  and  professors  censured  the  works  of 
other  savants  and  professors,  younger  or  less  distinguished 
than  themselves.  And,  curiously  enough,  the  animosities 
and  jealousies  of  the  writers  of  that  epoch  were  more  inim- 
ical to  the  freedom  of  the  Press  tlian  the  despotism  itself. 
Scabitchevsky,  in  his  history  of  the  censorship  in  Eussia, 
relates  that  when  the  Acaderaic  Journal  was  published 
without  being  submitted  to  the  censors,  the  writers  of 
that  day,  like  the  lackeys  that  they  were,  mutually  de- 
nounced each  other,  and  lauded  the  censorship  as  an  insti- 
tution of  the  highest  value.  The  Government,  on  their  part, 
vainly  tried  to  make  these  angry  scribes  listen  to  reason, 
exhorting  them  to  be  more  tolerant,  and  showing  them  that 
the  world  would  not  come  to  an  end  even  if  people  were  al- 
lowed the  free  expression  of  their  opinions. 

It  would  be  a  mistake  to  attribute  the  patriarchal  relations 
which  prevailed  between  the  Tzars  and  the  tzarnas  and  the 
writers  of  this  period,  either  to  the  liberalism  of  the  former 
or  the  docility  of  the  latter.  The  cause  was  much  more 
simple. 

The  reforms  of  Peter  the  Great  had  brought  Eussia  into 
temporary  unison  with  the  rest  of  Continental  Europe,  and 
at  that  time  the  autocracies  of  the  Continent  were  bureau- 
cratic autocracies  like  that  of  Eussia.  So  long  as  this  uni- 
son existed  the  science,  laws,  and  histories  of  neighboring 
nations  could  present  no  danger.  In  what  respect  could 
they  be  dangerous  ?  An  occasional  sarcastic  reference  to 
Muscovite  barbarism,  like  that  of  Puffendorf,  there  might 


316  EUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZAES. 

be;  but  nothing  serious,  nothing  to  imperil  the  basis  of  the 
regime.  True,  in  the  eighteenth  century  there  was  a  vast 
philosophic  movement  in  Europe,  which  contained  the 
germs  of  a  great  political  reform.  But  as  yet  these  germs 
had  not  shown  themselves.  They  were  hidden  under  the 
mask  of  humanitarianism  and  philosophy.  Princes  asso- 
ciated themselves  with  the  movement,  thinking  they  would 
be  able  to  dominate  and  direct  it.  And  our  Catharine  II., 
like  Frederick  the  Great,  was  a  philosopher  and  paid  court 

to  Voltaire. 

The  revolution  changed  all  this,  then  and  forever.  As 
touching  its  political  institutions  and  its  culture  Europe 
made  a  great  step  in  advance.  Russia  remained  what  Peter 
had  made  her.  Then  began  the  persecutions.  Eadiscoff 
and  Novikoff  were  the  two  first  martyrs  of  the  Eussian  Press. 
The  one  was  exiled  to  Siberia,  the  other  imprisoned  for  the 
advocacy  of  ideas  which  Catharine,  before  the  revolution, 
had  herself  professed.  The  mutual  positions  of  the  Govern- 
ment and  the  Press  were  then  distinctly  defined.  Since  that 
time  the  persecutions  may  have  varied  in  intensity,  but  they 
have  never  been  intermitted. 

How  Nicolas  dealt  with  authors  and  journalists  is  known 
to  all  students  of  contemporary  history.  In  the  time  of 
Alexander  the  Press  was  the  first  institution  to  feel  the 
weight  of  his  hand.  The  elder  Kosheleff,  in  his  posthu- 
mous memoirs,  tells  how  in  1858,  in  the  very  honeymoon  of 
Alexander's  liberalism,  when  the  Tzar,  supported  by  the 
flower  of  the  nation,  was  wa^rinsc  war  against  the  obscurantism 
of  the  old  nobility  for  the  emancipation  of  the  serfs,  the  per- 
secution of  the  censorship  reduced  him  to  despair  and  ruined 
the  pajjcr  edited  by  the  Slavophile,  Aksakoff,  and  himself. 
This  although  the  journal  in  question  was  an  ardent  advo- 
cate of  emancipation  and  its  two  editors  were  inveterate 
monarchists !  Despotism  will  tolerate  no  criticism,  even 
from  its  partisans.     The  condemnation   of  Mikailoff  and 


THE   DESPOTISM   A^'D   THE    PRESS.  317 

SchapoS  and  the  moral  ruin  of  Tcheruychevsky,  men  of  the 
greatest  intelligence  Russia  ever  possessed,  were  also  the 
work  of  the  first  period  of  Alexander's  reign. 

Sometimes  waxing,  at  others  waning,  according  to  changes 
of  the  wind  in  high  quarters,  the  persecution  of  the  Press 
went  on  without  surcease  the  whole  of  the  twenty-six  years 
during  which  the  late  Tzar  swayed  the  destinies  of  his  coun- 
try. 

n. 

But  it  is  with  the  actual  condition  of  the  Press,  not  with 
the  past  persecutions  of  poets,  novelists,  historians,  and 
journalists,  that  we  have  to  deal.  And  here,  at  the  outset, 
it  is  well  to  notice  a  significant  and  characteristic  fact — that 
whenever  the  Government  are  constrained  by  financial  re- 
quirements or  political  necessity  to  concede  some  measure  of 
reform  the  Press  is  the  last  to  profit  by  the  change.  When 
the  emancipation  of  the  serfs,  the  organization  of  the 
Zemstvo,  and  the  establishment  of  the  New  Courts  lent  to 
the  life  of  the  country  another  aspect  and  gave  promise  of  a 
better  and  a  brighter  future,  the  Press,  whose  duty  it  is  to 
animate,  to  enlighten,  and  to  encourage,  was  still  left  to  the 
tender  mercies  of  the  ancient  censorship.  Not  until  1865 
was  the  new  Press  Law  promulgated,  and  even  then,  few  as 
were  its  concessions,  it  was  granted  grudgingly  and  jin- 
graciously.  The  Russian  Government  never  hesitates  to 
retrace  its  steps,  or  take  back  with  one  hand  what  it  gives 
with  the  other,  and  the  new  law  was  expressly  termed  "a, 
provisional  regulation."  It  was  an  experiment  which  could 
be  discontinued  at  any  moment  that  might  be  deemed  ex- 
pedient. Its  application  was,  moreover,  restricted  in  a 
manner  altogether  exceptional.  New  laws,  if  they  make 
for  more  liberty,  are  rarely  applicable  to  the  whole  of  the 
empire.  Thus  the  Zemstvo,  the  justices  of  the  peace,  and 
the  new  Courts  were  instituted  gradually,  as  if  the  authori- 


318  RUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

ties  were  afraid  of  disgusting  the  country  with  too  much 
freedom;  and  the  process  has  been  so  cautiously  conducted 
that  there  are  still  districts  where  the  reforms  in  question 
have  not  even  yet  come  into  operation.  But,  as  touching 
the  new  Press  Law,  the  authorities  surpassed  themselves; 
not  content  Avitli  making  the  regulation  provisional,  they 
limited  its  application  strictly  to  the  two  capitals.  It  is 
true  that  the  Government  officially  undertook  to  extend  the 
enactment  to  the  provinces  so  soon  as  the  new  tribunals  were 
completely  organized;  but  the  promise  was  never  fulfilled, 
and  the  whole  of  Kussia  outside  Moscow  and  St.  Petersburg 
still  remains  under  the  domination  of  the  old  Press  Law  of 
Nicolas  I. 

Let  us  see  what  were  the  character  and  extent  of  the  con- 
cessions which  the  Government  so  timidly  and  so  reluctantly 
granted.  The  new  law  substituted  the  correctional  for  the 
preventive  censure;  but,  as  touching  works  with  less  than 
ten  sheets  of  original  matter,  or  twenty  sheets  of  transla- 
tion, the  old  system  was  retained.  Periodical  publications 
whose  proprietors  desired  to  enjoy  the  privilege  of  the  cor- 
rectional censure  could  only  do  so  by  obtaining  a  special 
authorization,  not  as  a  right,  but  by  favor  of  the  Minister. 

Yet,  although  the  preventive  censure  was  abolished, 
measures  were  taken  to  hinder  the  privilege  from  being 
abused.  It  was  ordered  that  after  an  edition  had  been 
printed,  and  before  being  sent  out  for  sale,  a  copy  of  the 
book  should  be  submitted  to  the  committee  of  Censors,  nom- 
inated by  the  Minister— a  body  which  had  power  to  forbid 
being  delivered  to  the  publishers  any  work  which  they  might 
deem  dangerous  to  loyalty,  morality,  or  religion.  As  for 
newspapers  and  other  similar  publications,  the  law  author- 
ized the  Minister,  at  his  discretion,  to  warn  officially  any 
journal  of  the  views  or  statements  to  which  he  might  take 
exception.  A  third  warning  entailed,  ipso  f ado,  the  offend- 
ing paper's  suspension  and  the  prosecution  of  its  conductors. 


THE   DESPOTISM   AND  THE   PRESS.  319 

The    Minister    may,   moreover,    by    administrative    order, 
which  means  by  the  simple  exercise  of  his  will,  suspend  any 
journal  whatever  for  from  three  to  six  months.     He  has  fur-  \ 
ther  the  right  to  stop  the  sale  of  any  paper  in  the  kiosques 
and  by  newsboys  in  the  streets — that  is  to  say,  he  may  cut 
off  half  its  sale  at  a  stroke  ;  he  may  also  forbid  it  to  publish 
advertisements.    These  two  measures,  when  enforced  against 
any  journal  so  unfortunate  as  to  incur  the  ]\[inister's  dis-  ^ 
pleasure,  are  tantamount  to  the  infliction  of  a  heavy  fine,  | 
which,  if  repeated,  it  is  impossible  for  the  victim  to  survive,  I 
there  being  practically  no  limit  to  the  amount  of  the  penalty 
he   may  inflict.     This  method  of  crushing  an  obnoxious 
journal  has  of  late  been  frequently  practised,  for  it  makes 
less  noise  and  seems  less  arbitrary  than  suspension  by  admin-  ^ 
istrative  order,  or  even  after  three  warnings. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  law  of  1865  possessed  one  great 
and  positive  advantage.     The  definitive   suppression  of  a    | 
book  or  a  newspaper  could  be  pronounced  only  by  the  judg-    | 
ment  of  a  court,  and  though  provisional  suspension  by  Gov- 
erment  decree  or  administrative  order,  or  deprivation  of  its 
advertisements,  might  ruin  a  journal  utterly,  the  mere  pos-  i 
sibility  of  an  appeal  was  a  decided  gain,  tending  as  it  did  ■ 
to  make  the  Minister  more  cautious  in  the  exercise  of  his 
powers,  and  more  amenable  to  public  opinion.     The  appeal 
could  be  made  in  the  last  resort  to  the  Senate  of  the  Empire 
— a  body  not  likely  to  treat  revolutionary  theories  or  sub- 
versive ideas  too  leniently,  as  was  sufficiently  proved  by  its  ; 
condemnation  jof  the  journal  conducted  by  M.   Aksakoff,  ' 
the  Muscovite  Slavophile.     Nevertheless,  the  Senate  acted 
always  judicially,  and,  as  it  showed  in  the  matters  of  the 
translation   of  the   first  volume   of   Lecky's    ''  History   of 
Rationalism,"  and   of   \^oundt's  "  The   Soul  of  Man  and 
Animals,"  did  not  hesitate  to  check  flagrant  injustice  by  1 
reversing  the  decisions  of  the  Committee  of  Censors,     In 
cases  of  urgency,  however,  the  authorities  did  not  scruple  to 


320  RUSSIA    UNDER  THE   TZARS. 

disregard  the  law  which  they  themselves  had  made.  lu 
18GC,  hardly  a  year  after  its  enactment,  Prince  Gagarine  and 
his  friends  resolVed  by  hook  or  by  crook  to  effect  the  sup- 
pression of  the  Contemporary  of  Nekrasoif  and  the  Russian 
Word  of  Blagosvetloff,  and  they  prevailed  on  the  Tzar  to  act 
as  their  Deus  ex  machind.  One  evening  at  a  ball  His 
Majesty  gave  the  order  in  two  words  for  the  extinction  of 
the  obnoxious  journals,  and  they  were  suppressed  accord- 
ingly without  any  formality  whatsoever.  But  after  a  while  it 
was  deemed  expedient  to  convert  the  exception  into  the  rule. 
Trials,  even  when  won  by  the  prosecution,  made  a  noise, 
excited  public  opinion,  and  helped  to  spread  ideas  which  the 
administration  desired  to  crush.  Despotisms  prefer  dark- 
ness and  shade  to  publicity  and  light,  and  in  1872  the  law  of 
1865  was  "  amended  "  by  a  supplementary  enactment,  de- 
priving the  tribunals  of  the  power  of  intervening  in  the 
affairs  of  the  Press,  and  vesting  the  control  of  them  in  the 
Council  of  Ministers,  who  decide,  in  final  resort,  on  the  fate 
of  any  book  or  periodical  which  may  be  in  question,  after 
hearing  the  report  of  the  Minister  of  the  Interior.  Thus 
the  latter,  being  both  accuser  and  judge — for  his  colleagues, 
in  matters  that  concern  his  department,  must  necessarily 
adopt  his  views — became  tlie  supreme  arbiter  of  the  Press 
and  purveyor  of  literature  for  the  entire  Eussian  nation.  In 
1882  another  change  was  introduced,  though,  practically,  it 
made  no  great  difference.  A  committee  of  four  was  substi- 
tuted for  the  full  Ministerial  Council,  but,  as  before,  no 
defence  was  admitted,  the  committee  deliberating  and  decid- 
ing in  camerd.  Another  measure  was  the  application  to 
recalcitrant  journals  of  the  preventive  censure.  What  the 
preventive  censure  is  and  how  it  works,  I  shall  explain 
presently. 

Since  1872  suspensions,  suppressions,  deprivations  of  the 
right  to  receive  advertisements  and  sell  single  copies  have 
rained  on  the  unfortunate  Russian  Press  as  from  a  horn  of 


THE    DESPOTISM  AISTD  THE   PRESS.  321 

abundance.  Books  banned  by  the  censors  are  remorselessly 
burnt.  Thus  were  condemned  to  the  flames  the  second 
Yolume  of  Lecky's  "  History  of  European  Morals  "  (the  first 
volume  was  sanctioned),  Hobbes's  "  Leviathan/'Haeckel's 
"  History  of  the  Creation,"  Voltaire's  "  Essai  sur  les 
Moeurs,"  and  many  more.  The  same  fate  has  also  befallen 
divers  Eussian  authors,  who  are  treated  with  so  little. cere- 
mony that  Prougavine's  book,  entitled  "Eeligious  Sects" 
(albeit  the  articles  composing  it  had  appeared  in  the  period- 
ical form,  and,  therefore,  been  passed  by  the  censors),  was 
burnt  by  order  of  the  Committee  of  Ministers. 

III. 

But  to  gauge  rightly  the  real  position  of  the  Eussian 
Press  something  more  is  required  than  mere  knowledge  of 
the  law  as  it  stands.  We  must  go  behind  the  scenes,  be- 
cause it  is  there,  in  the  shade,  that  the  despotism  shows  it- 
self without  disguise.  When  the  Minister  desires  to  im- 
pose his  will  on  the  Press  he  has  recourse  to  secret  ordo fi- 
nances, which  end  always  with  the  same  formula — ''In  case 
of  disobedience  the  articles  of  this  or  that  regulation  will 
be  applied  to  the  refractory  journal,"  which  means  that  con- 
tempt of  the  order  will  be  visited  either  with  suspension  or 
suppression.  This  proceeding,  re-establishing,  as  in  effect 
it  does,  the  preventive  censure  under  another  form,  is  of 
course  flagrantly  illegal,  and  contrary  both  to  the  lelte?  and 
the  spirit  of  the  law.  But  the  despotism  of  those  above  is 
so  absolute,  the  submission  of  those  below  so  complete,  that 
the  representatives  of  the  Press  have  never  been  able  to  join 
in  a  protest  against  the  tyranny  by  which  they  are  so  ruth- 
lessly victimized,  and  tbe  protest  of  a  single  journal  would 
expose  it  to  the  implacable  vengeance  of  the  Government. 
To  give  an  idea  of  the  character  of  the  nrdonnances  in 
question,  I  cite  a  few  specimens  v.hich  were  given  in  the 


323  KUSSTA   UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

Narodnaia  Volia  of  August,  1883,  a  clandestine  journal  be- 
ing the  only  medium  through  which  facts  of  this  sort  can 
be  made  known. 

On  March  4,  1881,  three  days  after  the  murder  of  Alex- 
ander II.,  the  Minister  sent  to  the  Press  a  secret  ordonnance 
thus  conceived  :  "  Several  organs  of  the  Press,  under  the 
pretext  of  extraordinary  circumstances,  have  allowed  them- 
selves to  print  articles  very  indiscreetly  suggesting  the  ex- 
pediency of  re-organizing  our  political  system,  and  express- 
ing doubts  as  to  the  existence  of  patriotism  in  the  higher 
circles  of  our  society,  which  are  accused  of  indilferencc  to 
the  true  interests  of  "the  nation.  The  appearance  of  articles 
of  this  character  will  entail  the  suppression  of  the  journals 
in  which  they  may  be  published." 

On  March  25th,  the  department,  "considering  the  near 
approach  of  the  trial  for  the  abominable  crime  of  March 
1st,  reminds  conductors  of  journals  of  the  order  against 
printing,  under  pain  of  suspension,  original  accounts  of 
political  trials."  (The  papers  were  permitted  to  print  only 
the  carefully  prepared  account  of  the  proceedings  given  in 
the  Official  Gazette.) 

In  April,  1881,  there  occurred  some  disorders  among 
university  students.  On  the  16th  of  the  same  month  the 
following  order  was  issued  :  ''  It  is  considered  necessary  to 
forbid  the  Press  to  discuss  this  matter,  to  give  any  news 
concerning  it,  or  print  any  communications  relating  thereto. 
/  Disobedience  of  this  ordonnance,^'  etc. 

The  next  order  I  shall  cite  is  very  curious  and  merits  par- 
ticular attention.  It  was  issued  on  April  29th,  ''In  view 
of  the  coup  d'etat  which  has  come  to  pass  in  Bulgaria,  and 
considering  the  necessity  of  sui)porting  Prince  Alexander, 
the  Government  is  desirous  that  our  Press  should  speak  with 
circumspection  {sic)  of  the  events  accomplished  at  Sofia." 
This  order  was  supplemented  by  a  circular  dated  May  9th, 
wherein  it  is  explained  that,  although  the  papers  are  for- 


THE  DESPOTISM  AND  THE  PRESS.  323 

bidden  to  censure,  they  are  free  to  praise  the  coup  d'etat  of 
General  Ernrod.  The  ordonnance  was,  therefore,  in  effect, 
an  invitation  to  the  Press  to  defend  an  arbitrary  and  illegal  • 
act  committed  in  a  foreign  country,  the  object  being  to  i 
make  it  appear  that  not  alone  the  Kussian  Government  but  ! 
Kussian  society  fully  approved  the  proceeding.  The  ex-  ' 
planatory  circular  was  issued  because  the  Press,  either  out  of  ; 
malice  or  timidity,  construed  the  order  too  literally,  and  j 
made  no  comment  whatever  on  the  incident  in  question.         i 

The  resignation  of  Loris  Melikoff  involved,  as  is  well 
known,  the  downfall  of  the  moderate  Liberal  party  and  the 
extinction  of  all  hope  of  reform,  a  result  that  excited 
among  all  classes  of  the  capital  so  general  a  feeling  of  dis-  - 
appointment  and  discontent  as  seriously  to  annoy  the 
Government,  and  on  May  18th  a  circular  was  sent  to  the 
papers  instructing  them  to  make  no  mention  whatever  of 
**  to-day's  proceedings  in  the  Municipal  Council,  or  to  dis-  | 
cuss  the  proposal  to  present  General  Loris  Melikoff  with  the 
freedom  of  the  city."  It  was  equally  forbidden  to  publish 
the  debates  of  the  Council  on  this  question. 

On  August  17th  of  the  same  year  the  Press  was  requested, 
in  the  accepted  form,  to  refrain  from  printing  any  articles 
whatever  against  General  Baranoff,  former  Prefect  of  St. 
Petersburg.  The  General  had  a  short  time  before  dis- 
tinguished himself  by  some  very  original  measures  for  the 
preservation  of  order,  and  by  his  so-called  "  Parliament,"  an 
institution  which  excited  general  ridicule. 

The  Liberalism  which  prevailed  in  the  higher  circles  of 
the  administration  during  the  Melikoff  period  produced  a 
movement  among  the  Zemstvo  that  continued  after  the 
Minister's  dismissal,  a  fact  that  sufficiently  accounts  for  a 
circular  issued  on  May  28th,  inviting  the  journals  of  the 
two  capitals  to  al)stainfrom  all  comment  on  the  "  decisions, 
motions,  and  addresses"  of  the  Zemstvo  and  the  munici- 
palities. 


324  RUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

When  Count  Ignatieff,  the  successor  of  Loris  Melikoff, 
came  into  office,  one  of  his  first  proceedings  was  to  appoint 
numerous  commissioners  for  the  elaboration  of  projects  of 
reform  in  various  branches  of  the  administration.  Troubles 
in  the  south  and  outrages  against  Israelites  in  other  parts  of 
the  empire  had  directed  attention  to  the  Jewish  question, 
and  a  commission  was  nominated  to  prepare  a  report  on  the 
subject.  It  was  a  question  which  greatly  interested  both 
the  public  and  the  Press,  and  an  open  discussion  of  the  mat- 
ter could  hardly  have  failed  to  facilitate  the  work  of  the 
commission  and  might  have  given  rise  to  some  valuable  sug- 
gestions. But  the  Government,  feariug  criticism,  and 
haunted  as  always  by  the  dread  of  "  exciting  public 
opinion "  and  thereby  producing  all  sorts  of  terrible  conse- 
quences, sent  out,  on  May  31,  1881,  a  circular,  ''forbidding 
the  publication  of  articles  likely  to  create  discontent  with 
the  measures  of  the  Government,  which  cannot  be  tolerated, 
above  all  at  a  time  so  difficult  as  the  present."  In  other 
words,  the  sole  alternative  of  silence  was  to  praise  all  Gov- 
ernment measures  without  distinction. 

A  few  days  later  (June  3d)  an  ordonnance  was  issued 
directing  the  Press  to  "  speak  with  the  greatest  circumspec- 
tion (the  reader  will  understand  the  meaning  of  this 
phrase,  so  frequently  used)  of  the  proceedings  of  the  special 
commission  for  reducing  the  price  of  the  lands  acquired  by 
the  peasants."  On  September  19th  it  was  considered  neces- 
sary to  forbid  the  ''publication  of  any  news  whatever  con- 
cerning the  report  of  the  special  commission  on  the  relations 
between  the  indigenous  population  and  the  Jews."  On 
October  10,  1881,  an  interdict  was  laid  on  the  publication 
*'of  any  articles  whatever  on  peasant  migrations."  On 
I  January  28,  1882,  it  was  ordained  in  the  usual  manner  that, 
"in  view  of  the  preparation  of  reforms  in  the  organization 
of  professional  schools,"  no  discussion  of  the  subject  shall 
take  place,  nor  any  news  about  it  be  published.     On  March 


THE  DESPOTISM  A^D  THE   PRESS.  325 

17th,  *'it  is  absolutely  forbidden  to  publish  in  the  papers 
any  news  whatever  concerning  the  re-partition  of  properties, 
equalization  of  lots,  etc.,  or  any  articles  suggesting  the 
justice  of  changes  in  tlie  economical  condition  of  the  peas- 
antry." On  April  20th  was  issued  another  circular  about 
the  Jews  forbidding  ''all  reference  to  the  deliberations  of 
the  Council  of  Ministers  on  the  subject,  or  the  publication 
of  any  articles  whatever  on  the  question  in  general." 

On  October  29,  1882,  it  was  forbidden  to  speak  of  the  ex- 
pulsion of  the  gymnasium  pupil,  Fougalevitch  (  of  Kamenez 
Padolsk,  who  insulted  the  inspector,  but  was  acquitted  by 
the  tribunal).  On  November  1st  a  circular  was  issued  in- 
viting the  Press  to  keep  silence  as  to  the  troubles  in  the 
University  of  Kazan.  On  December  16th  it  was  forbidden 
to  say  anything  about  the  prosecution  of  the  student  Seme- 
noff  for  insulting  the  Curator  of  the  University.  On  Feb- 
ruary 4,  1882,  it  was  forbidden  to  publish  any  news  concern- 
ing the  ''domestic  relations"  of  the  family  of  Councillor 
JVlarkus.  On  November  23d  it  was  ordered  that  no  mention 
should  be  made  of  the  misunderstanding  between  the  Cu- 
rator Neuhart  and  Dr.  Kwatz.  On  October  4th  was  issued 
the  following  order  :  "The  foreign  Press  makes  mention  of 
the  implication  of  Count  P.  A.  Valueff  in  the  trial  relating 
to  dilapidation  of  State  property  in  the  province  of  Oren- 
burg. It  is  forbidden  to  reproduce  this  news."  Here  we 
have  an  illustration  of  the  Eussian  proverb,  "  One  dirty 
hand  washes  the  other,  and  both  become  clean." 

But  the  worst  has  yet  to  be  told.  On  June  12th  was  is- 
sued a  circular  bluntly  informing  editors  that  the  publica- 
tion of  articles  on  the  relations  of  peasants  to  their  land- 
lords, or  on  "  the  Lutorique  affair,"  would  entail  the  sup- 
pression of  the  journal  in  which  they  might  appear.  On 
June  26,  1882,  the  Minister  informed  editors  that  "  virulent 
articles  having  appeared  on  the  affair  of  Prince  Sherbatoff 
and  his  former  serfs,  and  as  such  articles  might  have  a  bad 


326  RUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

influence  on  the  relations  of  proprietors  and  peasants,  it  is 
expressly  forbidden  to  speak  of  the  Sherbatoff  affair."  The 
two  affairs  in  question  related  to  cruelties  inflicted  on  peas- 
ants so  horrible  that  in  any  other  country  the  perpetrators 
would  have  been  put  upon  their  trial. 

Still  another  fact.  The  catastrophe  of  Koukoueff  was  one 
of  the  most  heartrending  of  our  national  calamities.  A  train 
ran  off  the  line  and  went  headlong  into  a  morass.  Many  of 
the  passengers  were  badly  hurt  and  more  than  a  hundred 
killed.  The  accident,  as  was  fully  proved,  arose  from  the 
unsound  condition  of  the  permanent  way  and  the  rottenness 
of  the  jules,  the  engineers  and  managers  having  appropri- 
ated to  their  own  purposes  the  moneys  assigned  for  repairs. 
On  this  becoming  known  there  was  a  cry  of  indignation 
from  one  end  of  Eussia  to  the  other.  And  the  Government 
— what  course  did  it  take  ?  Promise  a  searching  inquiry 
and  the  exemplary  punishment  of  the  delinquents  ?  Noth- 
ing of  the  sort.  It  issued  this  circular: — ''August  19, 
1882. — Since  the  disaster  on  the  Koursk  Eailway,  several 
papers  have  printed  articles  bringing  grave  charges  against 

I  some  of  the  employes  of  the  Ministry  of  Roads.  Articles  of 
this  sort  having  a  disturbing  character,  their  publication 
will  bring  on  the  offending  journal  the  severest  adminstra- 
tive  penalties."  Thus  the  State  forbade  parents  and  friends 
to  protest  against  the  authors  of  their  misfortune,  or  to  offer 

i  an  opinion  on  the  best  method  of  preventing  further  simi- 
lar disasters. 

This  terminates  our  record.  The  samples  I  have  pro- 
duced are  eminently  characteristic.  They  show  the  ten- 
dencies of  the  Russian  Government,  and  reveal  the  crooked 
ways  of  bureaucratic  despotism.  The  Press  is  regarded  as  a 
hostile  and  essentially  pernicious  force,  to  be  partially  toler- 
ated only  because  it  cannot  be  utterly  destroyed.  The  policy 
of  the  Ministry  towards  the  Press  is  dictated  with  the  nar- 
rowest official  spirit.      The   moment  a  question  becomes 


THE   DESPOTISM  AND   THE   PKESS.  327 

prominent  or  interesting,  its  discussion  is  tabooed.  Of  pub- 
licity, talk,  the  free  expression  of  thought,  the  Government 
stands  in  mortal  dread.  Even  when  it  takes  some  hesitatino- 
step  m  advance,  or  resolves  to  attempt  this  or  that  reform, 
its  first  proceeding  is  to  forbid  all  discussion  of  it  by  the 
Press.  Everything  must  be  done  in  silence  and  secresy  and 
in  the  back  rooms  of  Ministerial  Cabinets.  But  human 
thought  is  not  easily  fettered.  Harassed  by  proscription, 
indications,  warnings  and  admonitions,  threatened  on  the 
least  show  of  disobedience  with  a  whole  arsenal  of  pains  and 
penalties,  opinion  takes  the  weapon  of  the  feeble  and  meets 
force  with  cunning.  A  secret  understanding  is  established 
between  writers  and  readers.  An  esoteric  language,  made 
up  of  allusions,  hints,  and  conventional  phrases,  is  created; 
and  so  the  ideas  which  our  rulers  have  banned  still  pass 
from  mind  to  mind. 

IV. 

It  is  a  patent  fact  that  our  Press  is  almost  altogether 
Liberal  and  anti-Governmental.  This  Mr.  Katkoff  himself 
does  not  attempt  to  deny.  The  organs  of  reaction  may  be 
counted  on  the  fingers  of  one  hand.  Most  Eussian  papers 
are  either  frankly  liberal  or  shrewdly  artful,  alternating  be- 
tween servility  to  escape  the  censure  and  opposition  to  please 
their  readers.  The  opportunist  tendencies  of  the  Eussian 
Press  on  the  one  hand,  and  bureaucratic  obscurantism  on 
the  other,  are  leading  rapidly  to  a  collision  which  can  hardly 
fail  to  be  fatal  to  the  weaker  of  the  two  forces.  The  history 
of  the  struggle  between  them — if  that  may  be  called  a 
struggle  in  which  one  party  can  offer  hardly  a  show  of  resist- 
ance— presents  three  distinct  phases.  The  provincial  Press 
was  the  first  to  suffer.  Being  under  the  preventive  censure, 
the  administration  had  only  to  draw  the  bonds  a  little 
tighter  in  order  to  crush  it  utterly.  Less  known,  having 
less  influence  and  fewer  readers,  country  papers  may  bo 


328  BUSSIA   UNDEK  THE   TZARS. 

treated  with  less  ceremony  than  their  contemporaries  of  the 
two  capitals.  Altogether,  it  may  be  averred  without  exag- 
geration that,  notwithstanding  its  lack  of  literary  jjolish, 
the  part  of  our  Press  the  most  sympathetic,  the  most 
devoted  to  the  public  weal  and  capable  of  promoting  national 
well-being,  were  our  country  papers.  But  the  tcliinovniks 
of  St.  Petersburg  were  not  at  all  disposed  to  allow  free  play 
to  their  usefulness.  The  spectre  of  separatism  was  summoned 
against  them,  and  they  became  the  victims  of  the  reaction. 
The  holocaust  went  on  easily  and  quietly,  without  too  much 
scandal,  and  was  all  but  completed  before  the  death  of 
Alexander  II.  It  required  only  a  word  to  the  censors,  and 
the  work  was  begun.  One  by  one  the  best  country  papers, 
weary  of  the  annoyance,  the  chicanery,  and  the  oppression 
to  which  they  were  continually  exposed,  gave  np  the  strug- 
gle. Suppression  by  decree  was  unnecessary ;  they  were 
worried  out  of  existence  by  Ministerial  ordinances,  each  more 
impossible  and  absurd  than  the  other.  Purely  political  papers 
were  ordered  strictly  to  avoid  domestic  subjects.  Journals 
founded  for  the  express  jDurpose  of  defending  Jewish  inter- 
ests and  promoting  a  fusion  of  the  two  races  were  forbidden 
to  make  any  allusion  to  the  Jewish  question.  The  expedi- 
ents of  the  department  were  sometimes  marked  by  a  grim 
humor  all  its  own.  One  was  to  appoint  as  special  censor 
'l  of  an  obnoxious  print  an  ofHcial  living  at  the  other  extremity 
of  the  empire.  This  involved  the  sending  to  him  of  every 
proof,  both  of  comment  and  news,  before  publication. 
Hence  the  paper  upon  which  this  practical  joke  was  played 
I  could  not  appear  nntil  ten  or  fifteen  days  after  its  contem- 
{  poraries  of  the  same  town  or  district.  No  journal  giving 
news  a  fortnight  out  of  date  could  possibly  go  on,  and  jour- 
nals so  treated  rarely  attempted  to  reappear.  But  as  nobody 
could  say  that  the  Government  had  suppressed  them,  there 
was  neither  scandal  nor  ''agitation  of  spii-its ; "  one  more 
unfortunate  had  died  a  natural  death — that  was  all.     Were 


THE   DESPOTISM  AND  THE   PRESS.  329 

dealt  with  in  tliis  way  the  XovotcherTcash  Don,  the  Kama 
Gazette,  and  the  Tifiis  Ohzor.  They  were  ordered  to  send 
their  proofs,  not  as  nsual  to  the  local  censors,  but  to  the 
censor  of  Moscow,  Avhich  is  distant  in  time  (including  the 
return  journey)  from  Novotcherkask  seven  days,  from  Kama 
ten  to  twelve,  and  from  Tiflis  twenty.  The  two  first  made 
no  attempt  either  to  comply  with  tlie  order  or  to  continue  their 
issues,  but  Mr.  Nicoladze,  proprietor  of  the  Ohzor,  in  order 
to  preserve  the  right  of  publication  (which  lapses  if  not  used 
during  a  year),  brings  out  his  paper  every  January.  The 
Olzor  is  probably  the  only  daily  paper  in  the  world  which 
appears  once  a  year. 

It  would,  however,  be  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  the 
department  holds  to  the  letter  of  the  law,  loose  as  that  is. 
The  expedients  I  have  described,  seem  to  be  adopted  out  of 
a  spirit  of  pure  mischief,  pretty  much  as  a  cat  torments  a 
mouse  before  giving  it  the  coup  de  grace;  for  when  the 
humor  takes  them,  the  authorities  do  not  hesitate  to 
suppress  by  a  stroke  of  the  pen  a  paper  which  has  been 
submitted  to  the  preventive  censure,  and  is  therefore  irre- 
sponsible to  the  administration.  Thus  were  suppressed  the 
Kieif  Telegraph,  the  Odessa  Pravda,  and  the  Smolensk 
Messenger.  The  Tiflis  Phalanga  was  suppressed  for  pre- 
senting to  the  censor  a  drawing  which  was  deemed  danger- 
ous and  unsuitable  for  publication  !  I  believe,  too,  that  the 
Kieff  Troud  has  lately  shared  the  same  fate.  All 
these  were  under  the  preventive  regime,  which  means,  of 
course,  that  they  were  not  allowed  to  publish  a  line  unseen 
by  the  censor.  In  1876,  the  Government,  utterly  regard- 
less of  the  law,  and  without  assigning  a  reason,  suppressed 
an  entire  literature — that  of  the  Ukraine.  Except  novels, 
it  was  forbidden  to  publish  anything  whatever  in  the  lan- 
guage of  that  country — a  proceeding  absolutely  without 
precedent  even  in  Russia. 

Nearly  all  these  measures  were  taken  in  the  time  of  Alex- 


330  RUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

ander  II.  By  throwing  every  possible  impediment  in  the 
way  of  starting  new  journals,  by  having  censors  only  in  a 
few  of  the  principal  towns  (which  rendered  it  well-nigh  im- 
possible to  conduct  papers  in  any  other  town),  the  Govern- 
ment found  no  difficulty  in  practically  extinguishing  the 
provincial  press.  Hence  Alexander  III.  had  only  to  do  with 
the  Press  of  the  two  capitals,  and  it  must  be  admitted  that 
in  this  contest  Count  Ignatieff  and,  above  all,  Count  Tolstoi, 
showed  more  discernment  than  was  displayed  by  our  generals 
in  the  war  against  Turkey — they  attacked  the  enemy  where 
he  was  weakest. 


CHAPTER  XXX. 

THE  PEESS   UNDER  ALEXANDER  II. 
I. 

Russia,  which  differs  from  Western  Europe  in  so  many 
other  things,  differs  also  in  the  relative  importance  of  its 
periodic  publications.  Daily  papers,  being  essentially  polit- 
ical, cannot,  in  a  country  without  political  life  wield  the 
same  influence  as  in  England,  France,  and  the  United 
States.  Popular  institutions  we  have  none;  public  opinion 
is  ignored.  There  are  no  questions  which  depend  on  the 
votes  of  a  body  of  citizens  to  whom  it  is  necessary  to  appeal 
day  by  day,  and  whose  views  may  be  influenced  by  argu- 
ment and  explanation.  The  struggle,  so  far  as  it  goes,  is 
with  us  limited  to  the  domain  of  ideas.  But  for  the  discus- 
sion and  development  of  ideas  newspapers,  even  if  they  could 
always  afford  the  necessary  space,  are  not  always  the  most 
suitable  medium.  On  this  point,  moreover,  the  Russian 
public  is  exacting  ;  they  demand  something  more  solid  and 
serious  than  it  is  possible  for  daily  journals  to  give.  Vital 
questions,  which  in  free  countries  are  discussed  in  parlia- 
ments, meetings,  and  clubs,  can  be  treated  in  Russia  only  in 
the  Press— so  far  as  the  censor  may  permit.  Hence  the 
preponderance  in  our  periodic  literature  of  magazines  and 
reviews,  which,  while  not  neglecting  the  events  of  the  day, 
give  a  considerable  portion  of  their  space  to  the  higher  sub- 
jects of  domestic  and  general  interest,  sometimes  even  to 
standard  works  of  a  class  that  in  any  other  country  would 
be  published  in  separate  editions.     Works  of  fiction  are  con- 


332  RUSSIA    UNDER  THE   TZARS. 

fined  to  monthly  imblicaiions.  Novels  of  merit  appear  in 
the  first  instance  nearly  always  in  reviews  as  serials,  never 
a&feuilletons  in  newspapers.  All  this  gives  an  exceptional 
importance  to  Russian  reviews,  and  in  its  crusade  against 
tlic  Press  the  Department,  guided  and  mspired  by  Igna- 
tieff  and  Tolstoi,  opened  the  attack,  as  has  already  been 
said,  against  the  enemy's  weakest  part — the  daily  news- 
paper. 

In  order  to  form  an  idea  of  the  damage  sustained  by  Rus- 
sian journals  in  this  unequal  warfare  we  have  only  to  glance 
at  the  Souvorine's  Almanac,  where  are  recorded  all  the 
rigorous  measures  of  which  the  Press  has  lately  been  the 
victim.  Since  the  beginning  of  the  present  reign  eight 
high-class  St.  Petersburg  papers  have  been  either  summa- 
rily suppressed  by  administrative  order  or  harassed  to  death 
by  incessant  persecutions.  During  this  time  they  received 
forty-eight  admonitions,  were  as  often  provisionally  suspend- 
ed (for  from  four  weeks  to  eight  months),  and  suffered  incal- 
culable money  loss  by  interdicts  to  publish  advertisements 
and  sell  by  retail.  The  daily  Press,  in  fact,  has  been  virtually 
crushed,  for  among  the  defunct  journals  were  some  of  the 
most  important  the  country  possessed,  such  as  the  Poria- 
doJc,  the  Golos,  and  others.  Only  two  or  three  Liberal 
papers  of  any  influence  still  survive  the  persecution, 
dragging  on  a  miserable  existence,  threatened  and  badgered 
at  every  turn,  and  expecting  that  every  day  will  be  their 
last. 

The  war  against  the  great  reviews,  which  had  been  re- 
solved upon  from  the  first,  albeit  the  resolution  was  al- 
lowed to  remain  some  time  in  abeyance,  began  with  the  sup- 
pression of  the  Slovo.  The  editor  having  retired,  the  De- 
partment refused  to  sanction  the  appointment  of  a  succes- 
or,  and  in  a  private  interview  with  the  publisher  the  chief 
cynically  avowed  that  he  would  not  accept  even  a  declared 
monarchist.  After  eight  months  of  resistance,  remonstrance. 


THE  PRESS   UlTDER  ALEXANDER   II.  333 

and  suspense,  (during  which  time  the  review  was  not  al- 
lowed to  appear),  the  proprietor  lost  all  hope,  and  the  Slcvo 
Avas  numbered  among  the  slain.  Then,  after  an  interval  of 
admonitions  which  led  to  no  particular  result,  the  Govern- 
ment dropped  the  mask  and  suppressed  the  Annals  of  the 
Country.  The  Annals  was  beyond  compare  the  best  review 
we  had.  In  circulation  and  in  influence,  as  well  as  in  the 
quality  of  its  articles  and  the  ability  of  its  contributors,  the 
Annals  was  far  ahead  of  the  best  of  its  contemporaries. 
Its  subscribers  numbered  nearly  10,000 — a  figure  in  Eussia  al- 
together phenomenal.  T\\q  Messenger  of  Europe,  its  strongest 
competitor,  could  not  boast  of  a  circulation  of  more  than 
6,000.  The  tendency  of  the  Annals  being  essentially  Dem- 
ocratic, it  naturally  gave  much  attention  to  all  questions 
touching  on  the  condition  of  the  people.  In  this  regard  it 
has  rendered  immense  service  to  the  nation  ;  nobody  aan 
take  a  single  step  in  the  study  of  our  domestic  economy 
without  referring  for  instruction  and  information  to  the 
back  numbers  of  the  Annals.  Even  the  members  of  our 
unteachable  Government,  when  it  is  a  question  of  doing 
something  for  the  toiling  millions  of  the  nation,  preparing 
an  important  financial  scheme,  or  introducing  an  eco- 
nomic reform,  are  compelled  to  go  to  the  same  source,  as 
well  for  their  facts  as  for  their  ideas.  In  an  article  which 
I  contributed  to  the  Contemporary  Review,  when  speaking 
of  the  blindness  of  certain  writers  who  contend  that  Eussia 
is  still  unfitted  to  be  her  own  mistress,  I  observed  that  the 
best  proof  to  the  contrary  lay  in  the  fact  that  the  Eussian 
Government  has  never  adopted,  or  even  submitted  to  the 
fruitless  consideration  of  a  commission  of  tchinovniks,  a 
sinG^le  progressive  measure  which  had  not  been  previously 
indicated,  discussed,  and  put  in  much  better  form  by  the 
press  and  the  Zemstvo.  Of  this  the  Annals  afford  ample  il- 
lustration and  abundant  proof.  Mr.  Scalon  pointed  out,  and 
thoroughly  discussed  in  the  pages  of  the  review,  the  insxif- 


834  RUSSIA   U^'DER  THE  TZAES. 

fiency  of  the  allotments  assigned  to  the  peasants,  at  least 
ten  years  before  the  question  was  taken  up  by  the  Govern- 
ment. Mr.  Chaslavsky  and  Mr.  TrirogofE  dwelt  on  the  same 
thing,  and  called  the  attention  of  the  authorities  to  the 
necessity  of  the  measures.  As  is  well  known,  when  the  so- 
cialist agitation  and  the  gradual  impoverishment  of  the 
peasants  compelled  the  Government  at  length  to  act,  they 
dealt,  however  inadequately,  with  the  land  question  on  the 
lines  suggested  by  the  review  which  they  have  since  sup- 
pressed. Reform  of  the  methods  of  taxation  and  of  the 
law  of  settlement  was  exhaustively  discussed  in  the  review 
long  before  these  questions  were  submitted  for  the  consid- 
eration of  Loris  Melikoff's  and  Count  Ignatieff's  Commis- 
sions. The  measures  adopted  to  save  from  total  ruin  the 
so-called  chinsceviJci,  a.  sort  ot  perpetual  farmer,  were  due  to 
the  articles  of  Mr.  Koteliansk}-,  who  was  the  first  to  point  out 
their  wretched  condition,  and  denounce  the  injustice  to 
which  they  were  exposed.  A  still  more  striking  instance 
of  the  utility  of  discussion  and  the  power  of  the  pen  is 
found  in  the  fact  that  the  abolition  of  the  salt  duty  was 
brought  about  in  great  measure  by  the  efforts  of  the  A71- 
nals.  At  the  time  of  Loris  Melikoff's  advent  to  power,  there 
appeared  in  the  review  a  series  of  articles  by  Mr.  liconidas 
Cherniaev,  in  which  he  sets  forth  with  great  force  the  im- 
policy of  taxing  salt,  and  the  manifold  hardships  which  the 
imposts  entailed,  and  the  new  dictator,  desiring  to  signalize 
his  accession  to  office  by  an  act  of  grace,  abolished  the  ob- 
noxious tax.  Professor  Janjiul  in  his  articles  on  the  Eng- 
lish Factory  Law  urged  the  adoption  of  a  measure  for  reg- 
ulating the  labor  of  women  and  children  in  the  Russian 
factories.  The  Government  followed  his  advice,  and  ap- 
pointed him  factory  insj^ector  for  the  district  of  Moscow. 

Li  short  there  is  no  question  of  importance  relating  cither 
to  the  land,  to  commerce,  or  to  taxation,  which  has  not  been 
discussed  by  specialists  in  our  great  review.     For  the  con- 


THE   PEESS   UKDEE  ALEXANDER  II.  335 

tributors  to  the  Amials  included  men  who  were  not  alone 
theoretically  acquainted  with  their  subjects,  but  had  seen 
with  their  own  eyes  the  workings  of  the  systems  which  they 
desired  to  reform  and  the  evils  which  they  wished  to  abolish. 
This  lent  to  it  an  authority  altogether  exceptional,  and  the 
editor  was  enabled  to  enlist  in  the  service  of  the  periodical 
which  he  directed  the  most  ardent  and  intellectual  spirits  of 
the  time,  every  one  of  whom  was  animated  with  unbounded 
zeal  to  enlighten  public  opinion  and  promote  the  best  inter- 
ests of  the  country.  And  yet  this  great,  this  priceless  pub- 
lication has  been  struck  down  without  warning,  crushed  by 
the  stroke  of  a  minister's  pen,  its  useful  career  stopped,  and 
its  noble  and  enthusiastic  band  of  writers  silenced  and  dis- 
persed. Why  ?  In  the  circular  accompanying  the  decree  of 
suppression  the  Government  gives  its  reasons  for  this  por- 
tentous j)roceeding.  The  Annals,  it  is  alleged,  was  a  sub- 
versive organ,  a  sort  of  Narodnaia  Volia  (a  clandestine 
revolutionary  print),  published  in  defiance  of  the  censorship. 
Several  of  the  contributors  were  afl&liated  to  revolutionary 
societies,  and  two  members  of  the  editorial  staff  were  po- 
litically compromised.  The  futility  of  these  pretexts  is 
self-evident,  especially  when  it  is  remembered  that  out  of 
nearly  a  hundred  contributors  not  one  was  punished  for 
these  pretended  crimes. 

"We  pass  now  to  the  accusation  in  chief,  which  suggests 
more  important  considerations  than  any  of  the  others.  The 
Ministerial  circular  charges  the  Annals  and  the  Liberal 
Press  generally  with  having  caused  all  the  sad  events  of  re- 
cent years  (that  is  to  say,  the  assassinations  and  other  acts 
of  terrorism),  with  advocating  doctrines  absolutely  identi- 
cal Avith  those  of  the  clandestine  revolutionary  organs,  with 
adopting  a  similar  tone,  borrowing  their  methods  of  expos- 
ition, and  imitating  their  literary  style. 

Eeaders  will  remember  that  only  a  few  years  ago  the 
Russian  Government  proclaimed  everywhere  that  the  rev- 


336  RUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

olutionary  party  was  recruited  solely  among  tlie  ignorant 
and  the  young,  among  unsuccessful  studeuts  and  men  of 
broken  fortunes.  Now  it  openly  accuses  the  entire  Liberal 
Press  of  having  gone  over  to  the  enemy  with  arms  and  bag- 
gage. The  importance  of  the  fact,  if  it  is  a  fact,  cannot  be 
over-estimated,  albeit  the  prudence  of  the  avowal  may  well 
be  doubted,  for  in  the  Russia  of  to-day,  as  in  France  before 
the  Revolution,  all  that  the  country  possesses  of  worth, 
talent,  intelligence,  and  instruction  is  found  in  the  ranks  of 
the  Liberal  Opposition.  The  reaction  has  but  incapacities. 
The  only  true  men  of  talent  whom  it  has  secured  during  the 
last  ten  years — from  M.  Dostoievsky,  in  belles  Icttres,  down 
to  Mr.  Katkoff  in  journalism — are  both  renegades  from  the 
Liberal  cause.  The  former  was  once  a  socialist,  and  suffered 
ten  years'  penal  servitude  for  his  connection  with  the  Petra- 
chevsky  society  ;  the  latter,  in  his  earlier  and  bettor  years, 
distinguished  himself  by  his  warm  advocacy  of  a  constitu- 
tion on  the  English  model.  Even  the  Souvourins  and  other 
minor  lights  of  the  reaction  were  once  wanderers  in  the 
gardens  of  Liberalism.  Yet,  as  I  desire  neither  to  falsify 
facts  nor  disguise  the  truth,  even  in  the  seeming  interest  of 
the  party  to  which  I  belong,  I  am  constrained  to  say  that, 
strongly  as  the  Russian  press  is  opposed  to  the  Government, 
it  is  not  a  revolutionary  force,  has  not  indeed  as  yet  grasped 
the  revolutionary  idea. 

IL 

All  who  know  our  literature  will  agree  that  its  most  strik- 
ing and  characteristic  tendency  is  not  subversive,  or,  to 
speak  more  plainly,  it  does  not  use  its  influence  to  bring 
about  a  re-organization  of  our  political  regime.  The  censor 
stands  effectually  in  the  way  of  any  advocacy  in  this  direc- 
tion being  attempted,  and  our  writers  and  publicists  are 
too  lacking  in  political  instruction  to  make  the  attempt. 
True,  they  have  high  instincts  and  noble  aspirations  ;  but 


THE   PRESS   UNDER  ALEXANDER  II.  337 

the  instincts  are  ill-defined,  the  aspirations  vague  and  iin- 
guided  by  a  clear  understanding  and  a  resolute  will.  They 
are  like  a  locomotive  without  rails,  their  course  is  erratic, 
and  they  are  always  encountering  obstacles  and  being 
engulfed  in  quicksands.  The  most  marked  trait  in  our 
national  literature,  that  which  gives  it  a  character  all  its 
own,  is  its  deep-seated  democratism,  its  generous  and  unsel- 
fish sympathy  with  the  poor  and  lowly.  The  greater  part 
of  our  publications  are  devoted  to  subjects  connected  with 
the  well-being  of  the  people  and  the  amelioration  of  their 
lot.  It  is  the  same  with  all  our  leading  periodicals.  The 
peasant,  his  wants  and  his  woes,  are  always  their  favorite 
theme.  Nor  is  this  merely  a  passing  fashion.  It  has  been 
thus  for  thirty  years.  If  we  pass  from  articles  and  reviews 
to  lelles  lettres,  we  are  struck  by  a  peculiarity  which  dis- 
tinofuishes  it  from  the  light  literature  of  all  other  countries. 
While  fiction  that  deals  with  the  lives  of  the  lowly  is  else- 
where the  exception  and  occupies  an  inferior  position,  in 
Russia  the  loves,  the  sufferings,  and  the  virtues  of  the 
peasantry  form  the  favorite  and  the  frequent  subjects  of  our 
younger  and  more  popular  authors.  It  would  be  difiicult 
to  find  a  more  conclusive  proof  than  this  of  the  prevailing 
sentiments  of  our  superior  classes  ;  for  it  is  they,  not  the 
peasants  themselves,  who  read  these  romances  of  humble 
life.  This  generous  democratism  of  the  instructed  and  well- 
placed,  arises  from  the  conditions  and  circumstances  of  our 
intellectual  development ;  it  is  the  best  augury  and  the 
surest  guarantee  for  the  progress  and  eventual  happiness  of 
the  people — once  they  are  the  masters  of  their  own  for- 
tunes. The  sympathy  of  the  instructed  classes  for  the  com- 
mon folk  assumes  among  the  leaders  of  the  democratic  move- 
ment a  character  peculiar  to  itself  and  essentially  Russian, 
and  is  described  by  an  untranslatable  Russian  word.  The 
members  of  this  party  are  called  narodnik,  or,  to  coin  an 
English  equivalent,  ''peasantists.*'  The  origin  of  this 
15 


338  EUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZAES. 

phase  of  opinion  is  sufficiently  remarkable  to  merit  a  few 
words  of  explanation.  How  far  it  may  be  due  to  the  deep 
sense  of  shame  and  disgust  with  which  the  institution  of 
slavery  inspired  no  inconsiderable  portion  of  our  nobility, 
and  the  desire  thence  arising  to  make  some  amends  to  the 
victims  of  a  bad  and  degrading  system  ;  how  far  to  the  some- 
what effusive  enthusiasm  of  the  Eussian  character  and  its 
proneness  to  raise  every  strong  conviction  to  the  dignity  of  a 
religious  dogma,  how  far  to  our  unfortunate  historic  past, 
which  renders  it  easy  for  us  to  sacrifice  our  individuality  on 
the  altar  of  a  cause  which  we  deem  high  and  noble,  I  will 
not  attempt  to  determine. 

These  and  several  other  factors  have  combined  to  produce 
the  result  in  question,  for  ever  since  its  inception  Eussian 
democratism  has  been  marked  by  characteristics  peculiar  to 
itself.  The  old  advocate,  Spassoviteh,  in  his  speech  during 
the  Netchiaeff  trial  related  that  even  in  his  earlier  davs  it 
was  not  unusual  for  young  aristocrats  to  dress  as  peasants 
and  live  among  the  people.  In  1856,  some  young  nobles  of 
certain  provinces,  notably  Tver,  Kieff,  and  others,  abandoned 
the  privileges  of  their  rank  and  inscribed  their  names  in  the 
registers  of  the  rural  communes  as  simple  peasants,  albeit 
they  were  thereby  rendered  liable  to  be  flogged  by  a  mere  order 
of  the  police  and  exposed  to  other  unpleasant  possibilities. 
But  the  movement  alarmed  the  Government,  and  was  stoppod 
by  an  ukase  in  the  time  of  the  Minister  Lanskoy.  It  is  now 
no  more  possible  for  a  Eussian  noble  to  become  a  peasant 
than  for  a  British  peer  to  become  a  member  of  the  House  of 
Commons.  The  democratic  party  as  a  whole,  although 
they  did  not  go  the  length  of  offering  to  be  flagellated  out 
of  love  for  the  peoj^le,  made  enormous  sacrifices  in  the 
people's  cause  ;  not  alone  material  sacrifices,  to  which  none 
could  object,  but  sacrifices  of  principle.  The  instructed 
classes,  nourished  on  the  masterpieces  of  European  litera- 
ture,   could  hardly  breathe   in  the   stifling  atmosphere   of 


THE   PEESS   UNDER  ALEXA:^^DER  II.  339 

LInscovite  despotism.  They  thirsted  for  i^olitical  frer^dom  as 
travellers  in  an  African  desert  thirst  for  a  drop  of  cold  water. 
An  Englishman  in  such  circumstances  would  have  said,  "  I 
need,  therefore  I  will  try  to  have."  Said  theKnssian  narodnik, 
"  I  need,  therefore  will  I  resign  myself  not  to  have."  And  if 
asked  for  an  explanation,  he  would  have  addc  d  that  it  was 
he  and  his  like  alone  who  had  need  of  political  freedom ; 
the  present — chief  object  of  his  solicitude — it  would  profit 
nothing.  Flagrant  error,  for  as  touching  natural  rights, 
there  can  be  no  conflict  of  interests.  But  this  the  demo- 
crats of  1860  failed  to  understand,  and  they  agreed  to  pros- 
trate themselves  before  the  autocracy  on  the  sole  condition 
that  it  should  promise  to  promote  the  Avell-being  of  the 
masses.  Revolutionists  of  the  stamp  of  Herzen  were  unable 
to  resist  this  tendency,  and  democrats  like  ISTicolas  Milutin 
(brother  of  the  Minister)  and  Mouravieff  (of  the  Amour) 
became  humble  servants  of  the  Tzar.  Than  this  it  was  im- 
possible for  men  to  push  further  the  principle  of  abnega- 
tion, or  more  completely  to  efface  their  individuality. 
Their  love  was,  indeed,  like  that  of  the  fabled  pelican,  who 
fed  her  little  ones  with  her  own  flesh.  The  stupid  bird  did 
not  see  that  her  death  or  disablement  would  of  surety  entail 
the  destruction  of  her  offspring.  By  voluntarily  effacing 
itself  the  democratic  party  delivered  the  people,  bound 
hand  and  foot,  to  the  venal  and  cruel  bureaucracy  which  is 
the  true  Eussian  despotism.  It  was  this  fatal  error  that 
wrecked  the  great  Liberal  movement  of  1860,  although  it 
had  the  support  of  the  Polish  insurrection.  The  Govern- 
ment found  no  difficulty  in  forgetting  its  promises  and  pre- 
serving intact  its  prerogatives.  When  the  reaction  set  in 
every  concession  which  had  been  granted  was  little  by  little 
withdrawn,  because,  owing  to  the  policy  of  the  democratic 
party,  no  force  existed  whereby  the  bureaucracy  could  be 
withstood.  Hence  when,  twenty  years  later,  a  new  Liberal 
movement  was  initiated,  everything  had  to  be  begun  afre::h^ 


3-iO  RUSSIA   XJJS'DER  THE  TZAES. 

The  movement  this  time,  born  of  the  International  and  the 
Paris  Commune,  was  purely  socialistic.  The  leaders  had 
no  illusions  about  the  autocracy.  But  as  extreme  socialists 
they  are  equally  opposed  to  constitutionalism  and  to  mon- 
archy. Their  ideal  is  the  supremacy  of  the  working  classes. 
They  would  pass  at  one  bound  from  barbarism  and  despot- 
ism to  pure  socialism.  Here  we  have  a  new  doctrine,  revolu- 
tionary peasantism.  The  idealization  of  the  people  has 
reached  its  apogee.  The  people  are  omnipotent.  True, 
they  are  ignorant  and  illiterate,  but  instead  of  culture  they 
have  a  multitude  of  noble  instincts,  which  will  do  quite  as 
well.  The  favorite  idea  is  to  provoke  an  immediate  social 
revolution  ;  the  idea  of  political  revolution,  of  reorganizing 
the  State  on  a  Liberal  and  constitutional  basis  is  clearly  as 
little  favored  by  the  revolutionary  narodnik  as  it  was  a 
generation  ago  by  the  monarchic  narodnik.  But  as  no 
step  whatever  in  advance  is  possible  without  political  lib- 
erty, it  is  evident  that  i\\Q  narodnik  oihoiXx  categories  are  in 
contradiction  with  themselves,  and  their  policy  can  result 
only  in  the  maintenance  of  the  existing  regime  just  as  it  is, 
that  is  to  say,  of  the  reaction  which  now  rules  Eussia  with 
absolute  sway.  It  is  the  union  of  these  two  influences,  of 
the  old  narodnik  and  the  new,  that  has  given  birth  to  the 
so-called  narodnicestvo,  or  literary  "peasantism,"  from 
which  most  of  our  extreme  opposition  organs  draw  their 
inspiration.  In  these  circumstances,  as  may  well  be  sup- 
posed, the  political  programme  of  the  Democratic  Press — 
not  even  excepting  the  Awials,  which  was  also  narodnik — 
is  vague,  inconsistent,  and  unreal.  This  being  the  case, 
.and  seeing,  moreover,  that  there  are  journals  such  as  the 
Nedeilia,  which,  while  calling  themselves  Eadical,  adopt 
all  the  ideas  of  Souvourin  (although  they  do  not  thereby 
avoid  prosecution),  and  others  that  panegyrize  the  domestic 
policy  of  Prince  Bismarck,  it  cannot  seriously  be  contended 
that  the  democratic  section  of  the  Eussiau  Press  deserves  t(^ 


THE  PRESS   UJS"DER  ALEXANDER   II.  341 

be  called  subversive.  But  there  is  another  section  of  the 
same  party,  also  represented  in  the  Press,  which  claims  to 
be  "Liberal"  par  excellence.  It  professes  to  be  neither 
narodnik  nor  Slavophile,  and  advocates,  so  far  as  its  civic 
courage  permits,  the  pure  principles  of  European  Liber- 
alism. But  in  renouncing  the  errors  of  the  oldest  parties 
these  Liberals  have,  at  the  same  time,  renounced  the  prin- 
ciple from  which  the  former  cause  derives  its  strength — 
political  Radicalism.  Having  made  moderatism  the  basis 
of  their  political  faith,  refusing  to  admit  even  in  theory 
the  idea  of  any  effective  protest  against  tyranny,  our  so- 
called  Liberals  have  doomed  themselves  to  complete  steril- 
ity. For  in  a  country  like  Russia,  where  law  violates 
justice,  and  justice  disregards  law,  moderatism  has  no 
place.  All  that  these  Liberals  can  do  is  to  imj^lore  the 
Government  to  be  good  enough  to  resign,  and  their  shame- 
ful servility  to  the  powers  that  be  has  alienated  from  them 
the  best  of  our  Russian  youth,  and  all  the  most  potent 
progressive  forces  of  the  nation.  Few  papers  indeed  have 
known  how  to  reconcile  in  their  programme  true  Liber- 
alism with  Radical  Democratism — the  only  programme 
which  has  a  future  in  our  country.  True,  they  did  not 
advocate  these  ideas  openly — the  "  censor  "  would  not  have 
allowed  it — but  they  did  so  ''between  the  lines,"  and  never 
printed  anything  incompatible  with  its  principles — which 
is  all  we  have  a  right  to  expect  from  any  Russian  journal. 
Of  these  papers  I  will  cite  only  one,  the  Slovo  already 
mentioned.  As  it  is  irrevocably  suppressed,  I  may  speak 
well  of  it,  without  exposing  it  to  unpleasant  consequences. 

We  may  thus  safely  affirm  that  our  Press  has  done  little 
for  the  political  enlightenment  of  Russian  society.  The 
clandestine  journals,  printed  abroad  and  circulated  secretly 
at  home,  have  done  far  more,  notwithstanding  lack  of 
means  and  the  difficulty  of  distribution. 


342  RUSSIA   UXDER  THE   TZARS. 

III. 

Yet  we  must  give  credit  where  credit  is  due,  and  there  can 
be  no  question  that  the  so-called  Liberal  and  Radical  Press, 
the  Annals  above  all,  have  greatly  helped  in  the  develop- 
ment of  revolutionary  ideas,  but  in  another  fashion  than 
by  direct  teaching.  They  have  laid  bare  the  evils  of  our 
social  system  and  political  order,  proving  their  charges  with 
undeniable  testimony  and  irrefutable  logic.  For  this  sort 
of  propaganda,  none  the  less  effective  because  indirect,  it 
suffices  to  have  a  love  for  truth  and  to  see  things  as  they  are  ; 
because  in  Russia  of  to-day  only  the  blindest  optimism  or 
deliberate  bad  faith  can  defend  the  existing  order,  and 
impute,  as  do  the  Souvourins  and  Katkoffs,  treason  and 
wickedness  to  all  who  venture  to  cast  a  doubt  on  the  wisdom 
or  patriotism  of  the  bureaucracy.  This  explains  why  the 
Press,  almost  without  exception,  is  hostile  to  the  Govern- 
ment. It  is  impossible  in  the  nature  of  things  that  they 
should  be  otherwise.  No  censorship  can  effectually  combat 
an  opposition  of  this  character.  Tlie  only  way  to  overcome 
the  hostility  of  the  Press  is  by  suppressing  all  its  existing 
organs  and  forbidding  the  establishment  of  new  papers.  A 
Government  Press  is  all  but  impossible,  for,  to  the  honor  of 
Russian  journalism  be  it  said,  there  are  to  be  found  in  the 
country  few,  if  any,  journalists  of  the  stamp  of  Mr.  Zito- 
vitch,  and  even  if  such  editors  were  forthcoming  readers 
would  still  be  lacking. 

In  the  year  1884,  therefore,  matters  stood  thus :  Of  old 
established  reviews  with  some  influence  and  a  wide  circle  of 
readers  there  remained  only  one,  The  European  Messenger. 
All  the  others  had  been  harried  out  of  existence  by  the 
censorship.  Among  the  St.  Peterslnirg  reviews  there  was 
one,  the  Dielo,  which,  by  an  exceptional  piece  of  spitcfulness 
on  the  part  of  the  Government,  had  always  been  censured 
before  publication,  thereby  causing  its  conductors  number- 


THE   PRESS    UXDER  ALEXANDER   II.  343 

less  embarrassments  and  continual  annoyance.  On  occasions 
when  the  censors  Tvere  more  than  usually  censorious  Mr. 
Blagosvetloff,  the  publisher,  would  be  compelled  to  print 
five  or  six  times  as  many  sheets  as  were  actually  required — 
150  or  180  instead  of  thirty.  As  many  as  five  articles  out 
of  six  were  often  rejected  by  the  censorship.  (The  articles 
were  presented  in  proof,  not  in  manuscript.)  The  enormous 
useless  expense  incurred  in  this  way  may  be  imagined  ;  but, 
as  some  set-off  to  all,  the  proprietors  had  at  least  a  right  to 
assume  that  the  review  would  be  guaranteed  against  com- 
plete suppression  by  the  Government — if  for  no  other  reason 
because  such  a  proceeding  would  be  a  palpable  admission  of 
the  uselessness  of  censorship.  And  in  effect  the  Dielo  was 
not  suppressed,  technically.  But  all  the  same  a  very  decided 
stop  was  put  to  its  career.  The  Minister  sent  for  Mr.  Ostro- 
gorsky,  the  nominal  editor  (who  was  also  a  tutor),  and  told 
him  that  he  must  choose  between  giving  up  that  position 
and  dismissal  from  the  tutorship  by  which  he  made  his 
living.  The  Minister  evidently  intended  to  play  the  Dielo 
the  same  trick  he  had  played  the  Slovo.  If  Mr.  Ostrogorsky 
yielded  to  the  threat  and  gave  up  the  editorship  he  would 
refuse  to  confirm  the  appointment  of  another  editor  in  his 
place.  But  Mr.  Ostrogorsky  preferred  to  forfeit  his  means 
of  livelihood  rather  than  abandon  the  nominal  editorship  of 
the  review.  On  this  the  Minister  ordered  the  acting  editor, 
M.  Stanukovitch  (M.  Blagosvetloff 's  successor)  to  sell  the 
review  to  Mr,  Wolfman,  a  man  whose  opinions  were  alto- 
gether different  from  those  advocated  by  the  Dielo,  threat- 
ening that,  in  the  event  of  his  refusal,  the  censorship  should 
reject  every  article  presented  for  approval.  In  this  way  the 
Dielo  was  worse  than  suppressed  ;  it  was  transformed  into  an 
organ  of  the  reaction. 

As  I  have  just  observed,  one  review  still  survives  in  pre- 
carious solitude,  the  Messenger  of  Mr.  Stassulevitch.  People 
have  been  in  daily  expectation  of  its  suppression.     But  as  its 


344  RUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

editor  (who  has  been  taken  to  by  several  imperial  grand  dukes), 
and  many  of  his  contributors  have  "friends  at  court,"  Count 
Tolstoi  has  so  far  let  it  alone.  How  long  he  will  hold  his 
hand  it  is  hard  to  say.  In  the  meanwhile,  however,  he  was 
preparing  another  stroke  against  his  pet  detestation — litera- 
ture and  thought.  This  time  he  surpassed  himself,  and  his 
Index  lihrorum  prohibitorum — list  of  books  excluded  from 
libraries  and  reading-rooms — caused  throughout  Eussia  an 
astonishment  mingled  with  laughter,  which  left  no  room  for 
indignation. 


CHAPTER  XXXI. 

A   SAMPLE  FROM  THE   BULK. 

IiS"  December,  1884,  at  the  Moscow  assizes  took  place  the 
trial  of  Eykov,  once  manager  of  the  defunct  bank  of  Sko- 
pine,  who,  by  the  enormity  of  his  depredations,  unmatched 
even  in  Eussia,  has  obtained  an  almost  Euroj^ean  notoriety. 
For  an  entire  fortnight  the  Russian  press — albeit  the  Mos- 
cow papers  had  received  more  than  one  official  caution — 
were  simply  full  of  the  case.  In  society  hardly  any  other 
subject  was  discussed.  It  was  the  burning  question  of  the 
hour,  and  will  not  soon  be  forgotten.  That  malversations 
are  often  committed  by  functionaries  charged  with  the  care 
or  administration  of  public  funds  is  in  Russia  a  matter  of 
common  knowledge.  The  public  are  so  used  to  scandals  of 
this  sort  that,  as  a  rule,  they  attract  little  or  no  attention. 
They  are  regarded  as  being  in  the  nature  of  things.  To 
rouse  people  from  their  apathy  the  thieving  must  per- 
sent  some  striking  or  dramatic  feature,  or  the  sums  stolen 
be  of  startling  amount.  These  features  the  Rykov  case  pre- 
sented in  abundance.  The  malversations  of  the  ex-manager 
and  his  confederates  are  reckoned  at  12,000,000  roubles — 
probably  the  biggest  robbery  of  the  sort  ever  perpetrated, 
even  in  the  empire  of  the  Tzar.  This  alone  would  have 
been  enough  to  excite  public  attention.  But  when,  after 
two  years  of  waiting  and  suspense,  the  shameful  secrets  of 
this  band  of  brigands  were  revealed  in  open  court,  the  figures, 
portentous  as  they  were,  paled  into  insignificance  as  com- 
pared with  the  social  and  political  questions  raised  by  this 
extraordinary  trial.  It  is  from  this  point  of  view  that  the 
1.=;* 


3i!3  RUSSIA    UNDER   THE   TZARS. 

Eykov  case  merits  the  attention  of  English  readers.  As  a 
drop  of  water  from  a  well  defiled  shows  all  its  impurities,  so 
from  this  trial  may  be  inferred  the  unspeakable  corruption 
with  which,  under  the  present  regime,  the  official  world  of 
Russia  is  infected  from  top  to  bottom. 

The  Bank  of  Skopine  was  founded  in  1863,  at  a  time  of 
considerable  industrial  activity,  and  was  expected  to  isrove 
eminently  useful  to  the  trade  of  the  district.     It  was  a  com- 
munal, not  a  Government  institution.     On  the  other  hand, 
the  State  had  very  much  to  do  with  the  bank,  for,  like  all 
other  communal  banks,  it  was  placed  under  the  control  of 
the  Ministries  of  the  Interior  and  Finance,  and  had  to  ren- 
der to  the  latter  department  a  periodical  and  detailed  ac- 
count of  its  operations  and  its  position.     Rykov  was  ap- 
pointed to  the  managership,  although,  as  everybody  knew, 
he  had  been  guilty,  while  occupying  a  previous  appointment, 
of  malversation.     But  the  offence  was  readily  overlooked, 
perhaps  for  a  reason   suggested  by  the   Eussian   proverb, 
*'  Only  he  who  has  not  sinned  againat  God  has  not  robbed 
the  Tzar."     True,  a  few  protests  were  made  by  the  Skopine 
people.   Yet  Eykov   was  sustained   by  his   superiors,   and 
for  a  short   time  he   seems  to  have   justified   their  good 
opinion.     But  in  1868,  as  afterwards  appeared,  there  was  a 
deficit  of  54,000  roubles.     But,  being  reluctant  to  publish 
this  unpleasant  fact  to  the  world  or  impart  it  to  the  Minis- 
ter of  Finance,  he  did  what,  as  his  advocate  ingenuously  put 
it,  anybody  in  his  place  would  have  done— drew  up  a  false 
balance-sheet,  and  of  so  satisfactory  a  character  that  it  at- 
tracted deposits  from  all  parts  of  the  country.     From  this 
date  the  affairs  of  the  bank  went  from  bad  to  worse  ;  but 
the  more  desperate  became  its  condition  the  more  brilliant 
grew  its  balance-sheets.     Though  he  was  doing  no  legiti- 
mate banking  business  whatever,  Eykov,  by  the  offer  of  7^ 
per  cent,  interest  on  deposits  (while  other  banks  were  paying 
five),  procured  funds  in  abundance.     To  show  how  his  ex- 


A   SAMPLE   FROM   THE   BULK.  347 

ceptional  profits  were  earned,  Eykov  entered  in  tlie  bank's 
books  divers  ingeniously-contrived  financial  operations. 
There  were  fictitious  discounts,  fictitious  loans,  fictitious 
purchases,  and  fictitious  sales.  An  old  man  m  the  pay  of 
the  bank,  so  illiterate  that  he  could  hardly  write  his  own 
name,  signed  every  December  a  contract  for  the  purchase  of 
several  millions'  worth  of  imaginary  securities,  and  this 
transaction,  and  the  resulting  imaginary  profit  thereon,  al- 
ways figured  on  the  bogus  balance-sheet  presented  to  the 
Minister  and  published  in  the  Gazette. 

Eykov  not  alone  paid  his  depositors  a  high  rate  of  inter- 
est, he  gave  away  large  sums  to  charitable  institutions, 
supported  schools,  and  subsidized  churches,  thereby  secur- 
ing the  good-will  of  the  clergy  and  acquiring  a  high  reputa- 
tion for  piety  and  philanthropy,  good  works  and  right  views. 
All  these  gifts,  as  well  as  Rykov's  own  personal  expenditure, 
which  was  on  a  lavish  scale,  were  taken  from  the  bank's 
coffers  and  entered  as  payments  to  dummy  customers.  The 
remainder  and  greater  part  of  the  receipts  and  deposits  were 
simply  stolen,  either  for  the  manager's  own  purposes  or  to 
buy  the  silence  of  his  confederates.  Paper  was  made  on  an 
extensive  scale,  and  with  little  attempt  at  disguise.  Antieff, 
a  man  of  straw,  drew  on  Safoneff,  equally  a  man  of  straw, 
for  fifty  or  a  hundred  thousand  roubles,  discounted  the 
bill,  and  got  the  money.  Then  the  operation  would  be 
reversed,  and  Safoneff  get  the  money.  Purely  fictitious 
bills  with  imaginary  names  were  discounted,  and  the  porters 
and  messengers  of  the  bank  figure  in  the  books  as  debtors 
for  tens  of  thousands  of  roubles  taken  by  their  master. 
*' Everything  was  done  enfamille,"  said  one  of  the  witnesses. 

But  to  profit  by  all  this  profusion  it  was  necessary  to 
belong  to  the  cliqtce,  to  be  either  a  protector,  a  kinsman,  or 
an  accomplice.  Lists  of  suppliants  (sic)  were  laid  regularly 
before  Eykov,  who  according  to  his  caprice,  wrote  opposite 
each  name  '* granted"  or  "refused."     When  a  bill  fell  due 


348  RUSSIA   UNDER   THE  TZAES. 

the  acceptor  was  courteously  requested  to  accept  another, 
including  the  discount,  which,  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  say' 
nobody  ever  thought  of  paying  in  coin.  But  after  a  while 
even  these  formalities  were  dispensed  with.  When  the 
favored  few  wanted  money  they  simply  asked  for  it— some- 
times took  it  without  asking.  "  They  took  money  from  the 
cash  box  without  counting  it,"  said  one  -witness".  ''They 
came  with  a  pocket-handkerchief,  filled  it  with  bank  notes, 
and  went  home,"  testified  another. 

Such  was  the  method  of  doing  business  in  the  famous 
bank  of  Skopine.     And  the  swindle  went  on,  not  for  a  few 
weeks  or  months  merely,  but  for  something  like  fifteen  long 
years,  an  astounding  fact  even  for  Russia,  and  elsewhere  un- 
imaginable.    In  a  small  provincial  town,  where  everybody 
knows  everybody  else,  Eykov's  doings  and  the  bank's  posi- 
tion could  not  possibly  be  secret— were,  in  fact,  so  widely 
known  that  when  the  crash  came,  the  entire  province  (Ria- 
san)  produced  but  nineteen  unfortunates  who  had  intrusted 
their  savings  to  Mr.   Rykov  and  his  fellow  robbers,    and 
among  the  6,000  customers  of  the  bank  not  one  dwelt  in 
Skopine.     How,  then,  was  it  possible  for  irregularities  which 
■were  known  throughout  a  whole  province  to  escape  for  fif- 
teen years  the  attention  of  the  authorities,  local  and  general  ? 
How,  above  all,  did  they  escape  the  attention  of  the  corpo- 
ration, for  the  law  places  communal  banks  under  the  imme- 
diate supervision  of  mayors  and  municipalities.     It  is  their 
duty  each  month  to  examine  the  books,  count  the  cash,  and 
overhaul  the  securities.      How  was  it,  then,  that  all  this 
time,  the  municipality  failed  to  remark  the  gross  and  pal- 
pable frauds  perpetrated  by  their  manager  ?     The  answer  is 
simple.     They  were  privy  to  the  frauds  and  participators  in 
the  plunder.     All  robbed  the  bank.     Mayor  Ikonnikov  rob- 
bed. Mayor  Ovtschinnikov  robbed,  the  Town  Clerk  robbed, 
every  member  of  the  municipality  robbed.     The  monthly 
audit  was  a  farce.     The  books  were  never  looked  at,  the  cash 


A    SAMPLE    FROM    THE   BULK.  349 

was  never  counted,  the  balance-sheet  was  signed  without 
being  examined. 

And  the  authorities,  the  administration,  the  police,  usu- 
ally so  vigilant,  and,  when  it  is  a  question  of  maintaining 
order  or  punishing  political  malcontents,  so  prompt  to  act, 
what  were  they  doing  ?  How  could  they  be  blind  to  facts 
known  to  all  the  world  ?  The  same  explanation  applies  to 
them.  They  were  in  the  ring ;  tarred  with  the  same  brush 
as  the  municipality,  and  they  robbed  with  the  rest.  The 
ispravnik,  chief  of  police,  was  in  Eykov's  pay.  Aleksandroff, 
the  local  justice  of  the  peace,  called  in  derision  Rykov's 
lackey,  received  from  the  bank  a  loan  of  100,000  roubles 
and  a  stipend  of  500  roubles  a  year.  His  successor,  Likareff, 
was  put  on  a  similar  footing.  The  connivance  of  the  small- 
er oflBcial  fry,  such  as  the  postmaster,  the  pristavs  (inferior 
police),  was  secured  in  like  fashion,  as  also  the  members  of 
the  force  who  acted  as  the  manager's  spies.  Having  thus 
bought  the  entire  local  administration,  Rykov  became  as 
much  the  autocrat  of  Skopine,  as  the  Tzar  is  of  All  the 
Eussias.  He  could  do  whatever  he  liked,  and  conducted 
himself  with  all  the  insolence  of  an  ignorant  parvenu. 
There  dwelt  in  the  town  a  doctor  of  the  name  of  Bitni,  a 
man  of  good  repute  and  highly  esteemed  for  his  integrity  ; 
but  being  so  unfortunate  as  to  offend  Eykov,  he  was  one  day 
ordered  by  the  police  to  betake  himself  to  the  town  of  Kas- 
simvo  and  there  abide.  No  reason  for  this  arbitrary  pro- 
ceeding was  assigned,  and  it  was  only  when  the  day  of 
reckoning  came  that  Dr.  Bitni  learnt  that  his  expulsion  was 
due  to  Eykov,  who  had  remarked  to  the  ispravnik  that  the 
doctor  was  an  "  evil-intentioned  man."  On  this  hint  the 
chief  of  police  had  acted.  A  young  fellow  named  SokolofE 
was  so  ill-advised  as  to  whistle  while  passing  the  manager  in 
the  public  garden  of  Skopine.  Eykov  chose  to  look  on  this 
as  an  insult,  and,  the  ispravnik  taking  the  same  view  of  the 
matter,  the  youth  was  exiled  by  administrative  order.    With 


350  EUSSIA   UKDER  THE  TZARS. 

Mr.  Orloff,  an  engineer,  it  fared  even  worse.  He  was  sent 
by  a  company  to  purchase  some  coal,  the  produce  of  a  mine 
owned  by  the  bank  in  the  province  of  Eiasan.  But  finding 
the  article  of  indifferent  quality,  he  refused,  on  behalf  of  his 
employers,  to  accept  it,  and,  being  presumably  an  honest 
man,  he  was  not  to  be  corrupted  by  the  bribes  which  were 
no  doubt  offered  to  him.  Be  that  as  it  may,  Kykov  charged 
Mr.  Orloff  with  incendiarism,  had  him  arrested,  sentenced 
to  a  term  of  imprisonment,  from  which  he  was  only  saved 
by  the  intervention  of  the  Imperial  Procurator-General  from 
undergoing.  "  The  police  of  Skopine,"  said  the  witness 
Lanskoy,  whose  evidence  was  quoted  in  the  indictment, 
**jwas  ready  at  any  moment  to  execute  Eykov's  least  de- 
sire." The  (two)  brothers,  Lanskoy,  Sokoloff,  and  Tiuo- 
genoff,  all  employes  of  the  bank,  lodged  in  the  house  of  a 
Mr.  Brigneff,  an  arrangement  which,  for  some  inexplicable 
reason  did  not  suit  Eykov's  purpose.  So  without  more  ado 
he  ordered  the  police  to  remove  them,  and  the  order  was 
duly  carried  into  effect.  They  were  one  day  waited  on  by 
the  ispravnik,  Kobelinzky,  and  three  policemen,  and  com- 
pelled to  leave  their  lodgings  forthwith.  Nor  was  this  all. 
Eykov  counted  so  confidently  on  the  support  of  the  local 
representatives  of  the  Government  that  he  lorded  it  over 
everybody,  openly  rated  the  fire  brigade  because  they  did 
not  conduct  themselves  to  his  satisfaction  at  afire,  and,  vexed 
by  some  show  of  independence  on  the'  part  of  the  chief  of 
police,  told  him  that  he  had  better  take  care  what  he  was 
about.  "  You  are  nobody  very  particular,"  said  Eykov, 
"and  I  have  only  to  say  a  word  to  have  sent  down  on  your 
place  a  whole  wagon-load  of  t5/?rflv«iX's."  Whtn,  in  order 
to  ruin  Mr.  Diakonov,  who,  unfortunately  for  himself,  owed 
the  bank  10,000  roubles,  lie  had  this  gentleman's  house 
seized  and  offered  for  sale  by  auction,  not  a  single  bidder  ap- 
peared on  the  scene,  so  great  was  the  fear  inspired  by  the 
ail-powerful  manager.     This  was  exactly  what   Eykov  de- 


A   SAMPLE  FROM  THE   BULK.  351 

sired.  The  house  was  worth  30,000  roubles ;  he  made  the 
complaisant  police  value  it  at  9,000,  and  he  had  the  unfortu- 
nate Mr.  Diakonov  cast  into  prison,  where  he  remained  for 
eleven  months.  In  this  way  an  almost  illiterate  man — for 
the  manager  could  only  just  read  and  write — became  abso- 
lute master  of  Skopine.  "  God  alone  could  contend  against 
Eykov,"  said  one  of  the  witnesses. 

But,  it  may  be  asked,  were  there  not  among  this  mass  of 
cowardice,  servility,  and  corruption  a  few  just  men,  with 
sufficient  public  spirit  to  bring  the  doings  of  the  Nabob  of 
Skopine  to  the  notice  of  the  higher  authorities,  who  could 
not  possibly  have  yielded  to  his  influence  or  accepted  his 
bribes  ?  Yes,  certainly,  there  were  several.  One  of  them 
was  the  ill-fated  Diakonov,  and  he  had  his  reward.  And 
then  there  was  the  ex-mayor,  Leonoff,  who  gave  evidence  on 
the  trial.  While  he  was  in  office  the  affairs  of  the  bank 
were  kept  in  order,  the  books  properly  audited,  the  cash  and 
securities  regularly  overhauled.  But  this  did  not  suit 
Rykov's  purpose  ;  he  bribed  the  electors  and  the  municipal- 
ity ;  Leonoff  was  turned  out  of  office  and  a  more  complai- 
sant mayor  chosen  in  his  place.  Yet,  though  no  longer  a 
magistrate  he  did  not  cease  his  endeavors  to  protect  the 
bank  from  the  depredations  of  its  managers.  So  far  back  as 
1868  Leonoff  and  several  other  citizens  addressed  a  petition 
to  General  Boldireff,  governor  of  the  province,  in  which 
they  set  forth  the  condition  of  the  bank,  and  prayed  him  to 
order  an  inquiry.  In  1874 — six  years  afterwards — came  the 
answer.  It  was  to  the  effect  that,  the  petition  not  being  drawn 
up  according  to  the  prescribed  form,  no  action  could  be  taken 
thereupon.  In  1878  another  like  attempt  was  made,  the 
authority  appealed  to  in  this  instance  being  the  Minister  of 
the  Interior.  The  answer  was  as  characteristic  as  before. 
As  the  document  did  not  carry  the  proper  stamp  (20 
kopecks,  10c. ),  the  prayer  of  the  petitioners  could  not  be 
taken  into  consideration.     On  this  the  petitioners  drew  up 


352  EUSSIA   UliTDER  THE  TZARS. 

another  address  correctly  stamped,  and  sent  tliat  to  tlie 
Minister,  expecting  that  this  time,  at  least,  something  would 
be  done.  ''But,"  said  one  of  them  (Maslennikoff),  when 
<r[ym<r  his  evidence,  "we  have  not  received  an  answer  to  this 

day." 

This  indifference  in  high  quarters  is  as  easily  explained 
as  the  voluntary  blindness  of  the  local  administration. 
Boldireff,  the  governor  of  the  province,  was  bribed  like  the 
rest.  He  received  from  Eykov  79,000  roubles.  Yolkov,  the 
vice-governor,  did  better;  he  got  100,000  roubles.  The 
Marshal  of  the  Nobility  sold  himself  for  a  paltry  12,000 
roubles.  When  the  inquiry  was  ordered  in  1882  this  gentle- 
man found  it  convenient  to  be  abroad.  The  Councillor  of 
the  Provincial  Government,  Koumiantzev,  the  members  of 
the  Tribune,  Babine  and  Kirmilitzin,  and  the  Procurator 
Pottavzki,  were  proved  to  have  been  all  in  the  same  boat. 

The  trial  failed  to  furnish  proofs  equally  convincing  as  to 
the   parts  played   by  the  bureaucracy    of  St.    Petersburg. 
Nobody  cared  to  sift  this  side  of  the  question— neither  the 
President   of  the   Court,   the   Crown   Prosecutor,  nor  the 
prisoner's  advocate.     No  functionary  in  the  Ministry  of  the 
Interior  was  either  summoned  as  a  witness  or  required  to 
explain  his  conduct.     But  Eykov  hinted  darkly  that  certain 
highly-placed  personages  deserved  much  more  than  he  to 
stand  in  the  prisoners'  dock.     The  hints  of  a  man  like  Eykov 
are  very  far  from  being  trustworthy  evidence,  but  several 
facts  came  to  light  which  confirm  in  a  measure  the  suspicions 
they  suggest.     For  instance,  a  mysterious  personage  named 
Bernard,  a  civil  general,  acted  as  the  manager's  diplomatic 
agent  at  St.  Petersburg,  and  arranged  delicate  matters  for 
him  in  high  quarters.     As  recompense  for  his  services  he  re- 
ceived a  million  roubles— nominally  as  a  loan.     In  the  end 
they  had  a  quarrel,  and  Bernard  contrived  to  rid  himself  of 
his  liability  by  an  expedient  as  simple  as  it  was  significant. 
Ha  applied  to  his  particular  friend,  General  Tcherevin,  chief 


A   SAMPLE    FROM   THE   BULK.  353 

of  the  gendarmerie,  who  thereupon  requested  the  manager 
of  the  bank  at  Skopine  to  return  General  Bernard  his 
acceptances,  amounting  to  500,000  roubles.  Eykov  did  as 
he  was  asked.  It  was  hardly  conceivable,  however,  that  the 
chief's  eloquence  could  alone  have  persuaded  the  manager  to 
so  great  generosity.  What,  then,  was  the  consideration  that 
Eykov  received,  and  the  service  which  the  other,  a  great  man 
in  the  Third  Section,  rendered  ?  This  mystery  the  trial  left 
unsolved,  but  the  names  of  some  other  personages  of  high 
position  figured  in  the  proceedings — not  greatly  to  their  ad- 
vantage. The  Emperor's  Adjutant-General,  Grabbe,  owed 
the  bank  242,000  roubles ;  Prince  Obolinski  owed  it  60,000. 
and  both  debts  were  set  down  as  *'bad."  How  came  it  that 
these  gentlemen,  neither  of  whom  were  connected  either  with 
commerce  or  finance,  were  able  to  obtain  from  the  bank  these 
large  sums  ?  When  Eykov  was  pressed  on  the  point,  all  he 
had  to  say  was  that  he  had  lent  them  the  money  *' under  the 
guarantee  of  their  high  titles."  But  the  explanation  may 
be  hazarded  that  he  found  it  necessary  to  spend  money  at 
St.  Petersburg  promiscuously  and  without  stint.  In  Eussia 
you  cannot  move  a  step  without  paying.  Eykov  was  well 
received  everywhere,  and  made  much  of  by  great  people. 
On  the  days  of  grand  solemnity  Ministers  sent  him  congratu- 
latory despatches.  "  How  much  did  these  despatches  cost 
them  ?  "  exclaimed  the  other  day  a  Eussian  paper  with  seem- 
ing simplicity.  And  how  much,  we  may  ask,  cost  him  the 
decorations  and  titles  which  were  so  lavishly  conferred  upon 
him  ?  A  striking  proof  of  the  tenderness  with  which,  even 
to  the  last,  the  arch  rogue  and  his  accomplices  were  treated 
by  the  authorities  was  mentioned  by  the  Russian  Cotirier  of 
December  31,  1882.  "Although,"  it  wrote,  "the  Commis- 
sion (of  Inquiry)  is  working  with  zeal,  the  seizure  of  the 
property  of  Eykov's  confederates  proceeds  very  slowly.  The 
accused,  to  the  manifest  detriment  of  the  bank's  creditors, 
have  every  opportunity  of  concealing  and  disposing  of  their 


364  EUSSIA   UlfDEE  THE  TZAES. 

assets.  Ikonnikov  (the  mayor),  notwithstanding  the  charges 
against  him  and  his  approaching  trial,  sends  every  night 
loads  of  merchandise  out  of  the  town.  The  seizure  of  the 
property  of  the  other  thirteen  confederates  did  not  take 
place  until  a  month  after  their  committal  to  trial. 

The  exposure  of  the  frauds  and  the  punishment  of  the 
criminals  was  due  to  the  efforts  of  the  three  or  four  honest 
citizens  already  mentioned,  Leonoff,  Popoff,  and  Rausoff,  and 
the  courage  of  a  single  newspaper.  If  these  men  had  not  been 
ex-members  of  the  municipality  and  well-to-do  they  would 
have  learnt  to  their  cost  what  it  was  to  denounce  a  Council- 
lor of  Commerce  and  chevalier  of  several  orders.  Utterly  un- 
able to  make  any  impression  on  the  local  administration,  or 
to  obtain  a  hearing  from  the  higher  authorities,  they  did  that 
which  in  Russia  is  looked  upon  as  a  doubtful  and  desperate 
expedient,  but  which  in  any  other  country  would  have  been 
done  at  the  outset — they  appealed  to  the  Press.  But  even  here 
the  irrepressible  manager  barred  the  way.  For  two  years  the 
letters  they  despatched  to  various  papers  never  reached  their 
destination  ;  they  were  stopped  at  the  post  office.  Accord- 
ing to  the  evidence  of  the  witness  Simonoff,  evidence  which 
was  not  gainsaid,  Peroff,  the  postmaster,  received  from  Ry- 
kov  50  roubles  per  mensem  in  consideration  of  which  he  in- 
tercepted and  handed  to  his  employer  every  letter  addressed 
to  a  newspaper  which  came  into  the  office,  and  any  others 
that  the  manager  wanted.  Atlaroff,  the  telegraphist,  ren- 
dered in  his  department  analogous  services  on  similar  terms. 
It  was  only  in  1883  that  the  gentlemen  in  question  succeeded 
in  getting  printed  in  the  Russian  Courier  several  letters  on 
the  affairs  of  the  bank  of  Skopine.  The  journal  which  did 
this  good  service  for  the  community  is  one  of  the  few  liberal 
organs  left,  and  it  has  been  harried  and  persecuted  by  the 
Government  to  the  verge  of  extinction.  Other  papers,  either 
because  they  were  paid  to  keep  silence  or  hesitated  to  attack 
an  institution  so  closely  connected  with  the  State,  and  enjoy- 


A   SAMPLE   FROM   THE  BULK.  355 

ing  the  confidence  of  so  many  '^snpporters  of  order,"  re- 
fused to  publish  any  letters  whatever  on  the  subject.  Mr. 
Katkoff,  the  celebrated  editor  of  the  Moscow  Gazette,  had 
the  questionable  honor  of  being  publicly  praised  by  Rykov  as 
one  of  his  greatest  and  most  esteemed  benefactors ! 

The  letters  in  the  Courier  were  the  death  sentence  of  the 
Skopine  bank.  Creditors  rushed  from  all  parts  of  the  coun- 
try to  withdraw  their  deposits  ;  but  the  run  ceased  almost  as 
soon  as  it  began,  for  the  strong  room,  instead  of  containing 
the  twelve  million  roubles  shown  on  the  balance-sheet,  was 
empty,  and  the  bill-cases  were  filled  with  bogus  paper.  The 
bank  fell,  and  great  was  the  fall  thereof.  The  scandal  and 
the  panic  it  caused  spread  far  and  wide,  confidence  was 
at  an  end,  and  there  was  a  run  on  nearly  every  communal 
bank  in  Eussia.  A  few  stood  the  test,  but  a  full  dozen  came 
to  the  ground,  and  when  their  affairs  were  looked  into  they 
were  found  to  be  pretty  much  in  the  same  condition  as  those 
of  the  bank  of  Skopine. 

Among  others  the  bank  of  Kamychin  (province  of  Sara- 
toff)  had  to  close  its  doors,  and,  when  inquisition  was  made, 
serious  irregularities  were  discovered  ;  the  mayor  of  the  town 
and  several  of  its  richest  merchants  were  arrested  and  put  on 
their  trial.  They  had  depleted  the  bank  of  the  whole  of  its 
paid-up  capital  and  its  reserve,  for  which  there  was  nothing 
to  show  but  worthless  paper.  It  was  the  bank  of  Skopine 
over  again,  but  on  a  less  scale.  At  Krolevez  (province  of  Tcher- 
nigoff )  the  Qniixa  jiersonnel  of  the  communal  bank  were  placed 
under  arrest,  the  charge  against  them  being  that,  in  collusion 
with  several  tradesmen  of  the  place,  they  had  committed  ex- 
tensive malversations.  The  manager  and  assistant  manager 
of  the  bank  of  Roslavl  (province  of  Smolensk),  which  also 
broke,  were  convicted  of  having  embezzled  28,000  roubles  of 
the  bank's  money.  The  accounts  of  this  establishment  had 
not  been  audited  for  eleven  years.  At  Tamboff  the  inquisi- 
tion brought  to  light  quite  a  multitude  of  malversations. 


356  RUSSIA   UNDER  THE   TZARS. 

"When  the  manager  -n-anted  to  oblige  a  friend  and  still  keep  up 
a  show  of  regularity,  he  would  discount  his  draft  on  his  wife 
and  provide  for  the  bill  at  maturity  by  reversing  the  opera- 
tion. Similar  discoveries  have  been  made  and  prosecutions 
instituted  at  Voroncz,  Kotelnich,  Kozloff,  and  other  places, 
and  the  i^apers  announce  that  AirlofE,  ex-mauagor  of  the 
bank  of  Orel,  and  all  his  colleagues  in  the  direction,  are 
charged  with  misappropriating  4,000,000  roubles  of  the 
bank's  money.  As  their  defalcations  were  spread  over 
twelve  years,  the  case  is  not  unlike  that  of  Skopine. 

So  much  for  banks,  but  it  is  not  bank  managers  and 
directors  alone  who  rob  their  employers  and  betray  their 
trust.  Kobbery  is  the  rule,  honesty  the  exception.  Rob- 
bery goes  on  in  every  department  of  the  State.  In  1882  a 
Russian  paper,  the  Sovremenn  Tzvestia  gave  a  list  of  the 
"great  robberies"  known  to  have  been  committed  during 
the  last  few  years  by  public  functionaries.  According  to 
this  account  there  were  twenty-five  thefts  of  from  20,000  to 
60,000  roubles  each  ;  six  ranging  from  400,000  to  500,000  ; 
and  six  ranging  from  one  million  to  twelve  millions — in 
all,  twenty-seven  millions.  This  is  exclusive  of  small  affairs 
of  less  than  20,000  roubles,  which  are  past  counting. 
*' Russia  has  in  its  service  but  two  honest  men,  you  and 
me,"  said  the  Emperor  Nicholas  to  his  eldest  son,  and  what- 
ever progress  the  country  may  have  made  since  his  time  has 
certainly  not  extended  to  the  character  of  its  public  serv- 
ants. 

One  of  the  most  significant  facts  brought  out  by  recent 
revelations  is  the  relatively  modest  part  played  by  the  rep- 
resentatives of  the  Central  Government.  In  the  matter  of 
the  banks,  the  agents  of  the  local  and  superior  administra- 
tions acted  merely  as  accomplices  and  receivers  of  stolen 
goods.  The  active  parts  and  the  lion's  share  wei-e  taken  by 
high-placed  rogues,  who  were  enabled  to  rob  with  impunity 
by  subsidizing  the  venal  army  of  tchinovniks,  always  ready 


A  SAMPLE   FROM  THE  BULK.  35? 

to  place  at  the  disposal  of  the  highest  bidder  the  arbitrary 
powers  with  which  they  are  intrusted.  It  may  even  be  said 
that  the  inferior  agents  of  authority  have  been  more  in  fault 
than  the  higher  representatives  of  the  State.  The  latter 
intervene  only  in  exceptional  cases ;  smaller  robberies  are 
left  to  be  dealt  with  by  the  local  administrations. 

During  Eykov's  trial  he  protested  warmly  and  often 
against  what  he  called  the  injustice  of  the  public  and  the 
Press.  "  They  say  that  I  am  a  monster  ;  that  I  have  stolen 
six  millions.  It  is  a  gross  calumny.  I  swear  before  you, 
gentlemen  of  the  jury,  that  I  stole  but  one  million  ;  one 
million  only,"  he  protested  with  indignant  gesture  and  un- 
conscious humor.  This  was  quite  true,  as  his  young  advo- 
cate triumphantly  proved.  For  his  personal  use  Rykov  had 
taken  only  a  million.  But  he  had  been  enabled  to  take  that 
million,  only  by  spending  five  millions  more  as  hush-money. 
The  Government  by  which  Russia  has  the  misfortune  to  be 
ruled  is  for  the  country  pretty  much  what  Rykov  was  for  the 
bank.  In  order  to  obtain  money  for  its  own  use  it  must 
connive  at  the  depredations  of  its  own  agents.  To  maintain 
its  prerogatives  the  central  despotism  must  tolerate  the  des- 
potism of  thousands  of  local  autocrats,  governors,  police- 
men, and  ispravniJcs.  To  shield  itself  from  criticism,  the 
State  must  suppress  freedom  of  speech,  muzzle  the  Press, 
and,  for  fear  lest  the  latter  should  expose  the  abuses  of  the 
system,  forbid  it  to  expose  the  malpractices  of  individuals. 

To  show  fully  what  the  tchinovniks  of  the  White  Tzar 
are  I  should  have  to  rake  up  the  scandalous  trial  of  Boush, 
of  the  commissariat,  tell  the  story  of  the  Minister  MakofE's 
suicide,  make  extracts  from  the  bloodstained  pages  of  the 
''  Revision  of  Oufa  and  Siberia."  There  are  things  far  more 
serious  than  the  small  pedantry  of  the  Minister  of  the  In- 
terior in  refusing  to  read  a  petition  because  it  was  insuffi- 
ciently stamped,  or  the  humor  of  the  Minister  of  Finance  in 
paternally  recommending  a  forger  to  renounce  his  danger- 


358  BUSSIA   UKDER  THE  TZARS. 

ous  practices.  But  it  is  not  within  my  present  purpose  to 
describe  the  Russian  bureaucracy.  I  have  exposed  the  case 
of  the  Skojjine  Bank  only  to  give  some  idea  of  another  pe- 
culiarity of  the  present  Government — the  facilities  which  it 
offers  to  the  dishonest,  so  turning  to  account  the  prevailing 
system  as  to  rob  and  ruin  the  country  with  impunity.  It  is 
easy  to  see  from  this  episode  what  are  the  men  who  are  fill- 
ing the  place  left  vacant  by  those  whom  the  Government, 
by  its  laws  and  administrative  measures,  has  excluded  from 
all  participation  in  public  affairs  on  the  ground  of  their  sus- 
pected liberal  tendencies.  "Whilst  the  most  modest  attempt 
to  render  the  country  honest  service  may  endanger  a  man's 
liberty,  thieves  and  scoundrels  may  count  on  the  most  am- 
ple protection.  For  dishonesty  is  the  surest  guarantee  of  a 
man's  freedom  from  the  taint  of  disaffection,  and  that  he 
has  approved  himself  a  trustworthy  supporter  of  the  exist- 
ing order. 


CHAPTER  XXXII. 

EUSSIA    AND     EUROPE. 
I. 

Now  we  must  stop.  Our  journey  must  end.  It  has  been 
a  very  hurried  one,  and  we  could  see  only  a  small  part  of 
what  is  worth  seeing.  Thus  far  we  have  pointed  out  the 
2:)rinciple  and  the  spirit  of  the  existing  regime  ;  we  have  ex- 
posed the  conduct  of  the  Government  toward  the  su^Derior — 
the  instructed — classes,  which,  however  numerically  small, 
accomplish  most  important  functions  in  the  social  life.  It 
is  over  this  limited  field  of  governmental  action  that  we  must 
now  take  a  retrospective  glance. 

Strange  spectacle !  Here  are  a  State  and  a  Grovernment  call- 
ing themselves  national  and  patriotic,  which  systematically, 
from  year  to  year,  do  things  that  the  most  barbarous  conqueror 
could  do  only  in  some  sudden  access  of  wild  rage  and  stupid 
fanaticism.  For,  without  a  shadow  of  exaggeration,  the 
exploits  of  our  rulers  of  to-day  can  be  compared  with  those  of 
the  celebrated  Kaliph  of  Egypt  alone.  Surely  in  no  other 
country  was  such  a  government  ever  seen.  If  all  we  have 
exposed  were  not  proved,  and  doubly  proved,  by  heaps  of 
official  documents,  we  might  be  tempted  to  disbelieve  it. 
But  it  is  all  unhappily  only  too  true  ;  and,  what  is  still 
worse,  will  always  be  true  so  long  as  the  autocracy  rules  in 
Russia. 

Some  optimist  may  be  disposed  to  say  that  the  policy  of 
the  Russian  triumvirate  is  but  a  tem^iorary  aberration, 
caused  by  the  overweening  influence  over  the  Emperor  of 


360 


RUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZARS. 


Potedonorzeff,  Katkoff,  and  Tolstoi.     Yes,  the  policy  of  the 
present   government  is  surely  an   aberration  ;  but  only  for 
its  lack  of  policy,  for  its  cynical  frankness.     If  Potedonor- 
zeff and  Katkoff  lose  their  iulluence  and   Tolstoi  fall,  his 
successor  may  prove  less  rash  and  more  cautious.     As  to  the 
main  character  of  the  interior  policy,  it  cannot  help   but 
remain  the  same.      The  most   elementary  consideration  of 
self-defence  will  render  it  imperative  to  preserve  intact  tlio 
main  features  of  their  domestic  policy.     At  the  end  of  the 
nineteenth  century  the  sole  safeguard  of  the  autocracy  con- 
sists in  its  utter  ignorance  of  the  people.      It  is  not  enough 
to  confiscate  books  and  suppress   liberal  papers ;  the  only 
way  to  get  rid  of  propagandism  is  to  suppress  readers.      If 
peasants  read  nothing  but  the   Jfoscoto  Gazette,  they  will 
find  in  the  columns  relating  to  "foreign  affairs,"  reports  of 
European  politics,  of  parliaments  and  free  meetings,  and 
many    other    things    that    will    equally    "instigate"    to 
disrespect    of    the   existing  Government.      If    they  limit 
their  reading  to    Souvorin's  Almanac,  they  will  find  in  it 
accounts  of  the  incidence  and  distribution  of  taxation  which, 
rightly  understood,  may  prove  as  inflammatory  as  a  revolu- 
tionary appeal.     At  the  same  time,  the  Government  cannot 
help  shutting  out  society  from  all  part  in  the  management 
of  public  affairs.     On  whom  can  the  autocracy  now  rely  but 
on  the  police  and  the  bureaucracy?    And  even  against  the 
latter  it  must  take  precautions,  as  everybody  knows. 

Now  being  driven  by  and  by  to  a  flagrant  contradiction 
with  the  culture,  and  to  open  war  with  the  whole  body  of 
instructed  classes,  the  autocracy  is  driven  to  be  in  contra- 
diction with  the  State  itself.  It  is  prompting  the  very 
State  to  ruin  by  both  hands.  By  opposing  the  instruction 
in  every  shape,  it  quenches  the  very  sources  of  productivity 
of  all  the  national  labor.  By  leaving  the  management  of 
all,  or  nearly  all,  the  public  affairs  in  the  hands  of  a  hired, 
uncontrollable  bureaucracy,  which  is  as  unable  as  it  is  cor- 


RUSSIA   AJ^D   EUROPE.  361 

rupted,  the  autocracy  add  to  the  original  scarcity  of  resources 
the  damages  of  their  misemplojTnent.  The  gradual  im- 
poverishment of  the  State,  the  growing  embroiling  of 
finances,  the  progressive  misery  of  the  masses  tilling  the 
soil,  are  but  the  natural  and  unavoidable  consequences  of 
such  a  regime.  And  it  is  no  more  a  secret  to  anybody  that 
it  is  just  what  we  are  witnessing  in  Eussia. 

n. 

This  most  anomalous  position  of  as  great  a  country  as 
Eussia  cannot  last.  In  one  way  or  another  the  catastrophe 
must  come — that  is  what  everybody  says  at  present.  Some 
very  accurate  observer  finds  many  points  of  likeness  between 
modern  Eussia  and  France  before  the  Eevolution.  There  is 
a  good  deal  of  analog}^  indeed ;  the  greatest  stands,  of 
course,  in  the  diffusion  throughout  all  the  classes  of  the  na- 
tion of  anti- Governmental  tendencies,  and  of  those  generous 
and  creative  ideas  which  are  called  "subversions,"  because 
they  tend  to  subvert  wrong  and  substitute  it  by  right.  The 
material  condition  and  moral  dispositions  of  the  masses  are 
not  unlike,  either.  There  is,  Iwwever,  a  point  of  great  dif- 
ference also,  on  which  we  must  dwell  a  moment,  because  it 
contributes  greatly  to  quicken  and  intensify  the  decomposi- 
tion of  the  Eussian  State,  and  to  the  approaching  of  the 
ultimate  crisis.     It  is  the  political  position  of  Eussia. 

The  despotic  France  of  the  seventeenth  century  had 
around  her  neighboring  States  as  despotic  as  herself.  Eussia 
has  for  neighbors  constitutional  States.  Their  constitution 
is  very  far  from  being  the  ideal  of  freedom.  But  in  any 
case  it  prevents  their  Governments  from  being  in  open  war 
with  the  whole  country.  Neither  Prussia,  nor  Austria,  nor 
any  other  Government  in  Europe  prevent  willingly  the  dif- 
fusion of  education,  or  the  more  economical  and  reasonable 
management  of  public  affairs,  out  of  fear  of  giving  danger- 
ous arms   to   their  enemies.     All  neighboring   States   are 

16  o  o 


363  EUSSIA   UKDEE  THE  TZARS. 

growing  in  strength  and  riches.  All  the  Governments  do 
their  best  to  promote  this  general  progress,  which  turns  to 
their  advantage.  In  Eussia  this  progress  is  either  stopped 
or  extremely  slow,  from  the  check  it  encounters  on  every 
hand  from  the  Government. 

Now,  being  iudissolubly  united  with  the  other  European 
States  by  political  ties — being  obliged  to  sustain  an  econom- 
ical, military,  and  political  competition  with  those  neighbor 
States,  Russia  is  evidently  obliged  to  ruin  herself  more  and 
more.  For  it  cannot  without  overstraining  keep  the  front 
with  them,  notwithstanding  the  growing  difference  in  the 
interior  development  of  the  respective  countries.  The 
longer  this  competition  lasts,  the  more  it  becomes  dis- 
astrous and  difficult  to  sustain  for  the  Eussian  State.  The 
political  crisis  is,  therefore,  much  nearer,  forcible,  and  im- 
mediate than  the  social  one.  And  the  actual  position  of 
Eussia  in  this  point  presents  us  a'  great  analogy  with  the 
position  of  Eussia  itself  in  the  period  which  preceded  the 
reform  of  Peter  the  Great.  The  autocracy  plays  now  just 
the  same  part  as  regards  the  culture  as  the  Moscovite  cleri- 
calism played  in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries. 
After  being  the  instrument  of  the  creation  of  Eussian  polit- 
ical power,  it  is  now  the  cause  of  its  gradual  destruction. 
If  the  autocracy  do  not  fall  under  the  combined  effects  of 
interior  causes,  the  first  serious  war  will  overtlirow  it,  per- 
haps by  shedding  rivers  of  blood  and  by  dismembering  the 
State.  The  destruction  of  the  autocracy  is  become  a  politi- 
cal as  well  as  social  and  intellectual  necessity.  It  is  re- 
quired for  the  safety  of  the  State  as  well  as  for  the  welfare 
of  the  nation. 

m. 

Let  us  pass  to  the  autocracy  of  central  power  itself.  It 
is  very  edifying,  and  surely  most  consoling,  to  see  how  cer- 
tain crimes  against  humanity  generate  out  of  themselves 


EUSSIA  AND   EUROPE.  3G3 

their  own  punishment.  The  Bible  records  the  legend  of  a 
Babylonian  Tzar  of  old— Nebuchadnezzar  —who,  in  punish- 
ment for  his  excessive  pride,  was  transformed  by  the 
Almighty  into  an  ox,  and  for  twelve  years  ate  nothing 
but  grass.  I  do  not  remember  any  more  in  what  the  pride 
of  the  Babylonian  Tzar  manifested  itself  to  incur  such  a  dire 
punishment.  Surely  it  was  not  greater  than  the  pride  of 
his  confrere  of  St.  Petersburg,  pretending  to  govern  all,  to 
decide  for  all,  arbitrate  for  all  what  is  doing  and  to  be  done 
in  a  nation  of  a  hundred  million,  like  the  Eussia  of  to-day 
is.  It  was  quite  just  that  the  punishment  inflicted  on  him 
may  be  something  very  (if  not  altogether)  similar  :  he  is 
condemned  to  masticate  his  life  long  nothing  but  paper. 
In  a  bureaucratic  State,  where  everything  is  to  be  done 
in  writing,  and  nothing  is  left  to  personal  freedom  and  in- 
itiative, the  most  trifling  particulars  ascend  from  the  in- 
ferior agents  of  a  bureaucratic  system  up  to  the  topmost — 
the  Tzar.  What,  for  instance,  will  the  reader  think  of 
the  following,  one  out  of  thousands  of  quite  similar  "  all 
highest  orders,"  as  they  are  called  in  ofi&cial  language,  the 
Tzar's  ukases.  It  refers  to  nothing  more  nor  less  than  to 
students'  blouses.  I  transcribe  it  in  all  its  bureaucratical 
candor  : — 

"  Having  heard  the  all-humblest  report  (so  the  document  ran)  of 
the  Minister  of  State  Domain,  his  Majesty  the  Emperor— 15th  October 
of  the  current  year  (1884)— all  highly  deigned  to  order,  in  supplement 
to  the  model  of  dresses  all  highly  approved  by  his  Majesty,  the  3d 
May,  1882,  to  the  students  of  Moscow  Agricultural  Academy,  is 
granted  the  permission  during  the  lessons  in  the  academy,  and  in  prac 
tical  work,  to  wear  blouses  ;  the  winter,  of  brown-gray  woollen  stuff, 
the  summer,  of  light-yellow  (unbleached)  linen,  with  a  brown  leather 
strap  adorned  with  metallic  clasp,  on  which,  interwoven  with  a  crown 
of  spikes,  must  be  drawn  the  letters  P.  and  A.  in  Old  Slav  character," 

Can  the  time  of  the  supreme  ruler  of  one  hundred  millions 
be  better  employed  than  with  the  deep  question  of  the  color 


364  RUSSIA   UXDER  THE  TZARS. 

and  material  of  students'  blouse,  their  wearing  blouses 
or  jackets,  the  letters  on  the  clasps  being  of  Slav  or  Gothic 
character  ?  This  question  is  not  very  complicated  it  is  true. 
If  the  Tzar  have  no  particular  taste  for  a  tailor's  trade,  he 
may  settle  it  at  once.  But  this  draft  of  order  must  be  read 
to  him  before  being  signed,  must  be  mentioned  at  least  to 
him.  He  must  give  his  yes  or  no  ;  must  lose  a  part  of  his 
time.  And  if  every  minister  bring  him  a  hundred  of  such 
trifles,  how  much  of  his  work-time  will  the  Tzar  preserve 
for  things  that  are  not  trifles  ?  And  it  is  easy  to  conceive 
that  every  minister  can  procure  as  many  things  of  that  and 
even  of  greater  importance  as  required  to  fill  up  his  master's 
leisure,  and  deprive  him  of  any  possibility  of  giving  serious 
attention  to  matters  of  some  importance.  Thus  the  Tzar 
can  only  act  by  his  ministers'  advice.  Even  such  a  zealous 
absolutist  as  the  defunct  Moscow  Professor  Buslaeff,  in  a 
letter  published  in  one  of  our  antiquarian  magazines,  after 
computing  the  enormous  quantity  of  this  quite  useless  ukase 
signing,  exclaims  that  to  restore  to  the  White  Tzar  his  lib- 
erty of  action  a  jiart  of  this  futile,  everyday,  governmental 
drudgery  must  be  put  on  a  responsible  minister  ;  although 
the  learned  professor  does  not  go  so  far  as  to  make  them  res- 
ponsible before  a  national  representation.  If  we  compare  the 
position  of  tlie  despots  of  various  epochs,  we  may  fairly  affirm 
that  the  present  mode  of  reducing  to  impotence  the  would- 
be  all-powerful  master  is  much  more  effective  than  the 
old  one.  A  despot  like  the  old  Russian  Tzars  with  an  effort 
of  will  may  have  freed  himself  with  remorse  from  one  or 
another  futility  of  the  court  observance.  The  chief  of  the 
modern  bureaucratic  despots  may  not,  with  the  same  calm- 
ness of  mind,  shun  the  duty  of  reading  a  dozen  of  volumi- 
nous suits  on  the  decision  of  which  are  pending  so  many  des- 
tinies, or  a  project  of  financial  reform  on  which  may  depend 
the  welfare  or  misery  of  a  province. 
And  if  it  happened  that,  notwithstanding  their  material 


RUSSIA   AISTD   EUROPE.  3G5 

obstacles,  the  Tzar  being  under  some  particular  influence  had 
enforced  his  own  view  on  some  subject,  the  would-be  all- 
humblest  executioners,  the  ministers,would  have  no  difficulty 
to  put  the  thing  right.  They  have  only  to  appeal  to  the 
marvellous  slowness  of  bureaucratic  proceedings,  which 
allow  to  postijone  every  measure  for  as  many  years — I  could 
say  as  many  generations — as  required.  Nothing  prevents 
them  from  effecting  at  the  first  opportunity  a  change  in  the 
Tzar's  decision  if  they  like.  If  they  do  not  they  may  leave 
the  thing  to  sleep  in  some  office  the  sleep  of  the  just.  The 
history  of  our  administration  is  but  a  long  series  of  similar 
instances.  If  Alexander  II.  could  do  something  in  the  be- 
ginning of  his  reign,  it  is  only  because  he  broke  for  a  short 
time  the  bureaucratic  routine,  and  appealed  to  society.  From 
the  moment  when,  prompted  by  fear,  he  threw  himself  into 
the  arms  of  bureaucracy,  he  remained  powerless,  and  went 
straight  to  his  own  ruin.  Of  all  sorts  of  despots  that  history 
knows,  the  most  helpless,  most  impotent,  is  surely  the  bu- 
reaucratic despots  of  our  time. 

We  may  go  still  further.  As  a  rough  rock  of  the  moun- 
tain by  long  rolling  in  the  bottom  of  a  stream  is  reduced  to 
a  smooth,  inoffensive  pebble,  which  may  be  heavy  but  no 
longer  cutting,  so  is  the  actual  autocracy  of  Eussia.  The 
Tzars  of  old  had  for  their  political  insignificance  a  consola- 
tion and  compensation  in  their  unlimited  power  of  self-in- 
dulging mischief,  if  it  may  be  called  a  consolation.  This 
latter  power  in  our  modern  Tzars  is  reduced  to  quite  a  pla- 
tonic  kind.  There  is  the  all-seeing,  all-knowing  reporter, 
with  his  shrieks  and  his  laughter,  his  indignation  and  scan- 
dal, to  limit  their  despotism  in  the  inner  circle  where  they 
move.  Our  forefathers  said,  to  be  near  the  Tzar  is  to  be 
near  to  death.  But  a  modern  Tzar  does  not  condemn 
to  death  anybody  by  the  contraction  of  his  brows  as  the 
Moscow  Tzar  did.  And  he  does  not  exile  to  Siberia  the 
courtiers  who  incur  his  displeasure,  like  the  first  emperor  of 


366  RUSSIA  UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

the  St.  Petersburg  period.  All  is  done  now  by  tchinovniks. 
Personally,  a  modern  Tzar  does  no  harm  to  anybody  at  all, 
and  is  just  as  quiet  and  inoffensive  a  person  as  any  constitu- 
tional monarch.  He  has  not  given  up  his  power ;  he  is  like 
a  beast  with  strong  teeth  and  murderous  claws  still,  but  he 
never  uses  them.  He  is  now  quite  a  tame,  domesticated 
animal,  who  wears  quite  obediently  the  yoke  of  the  courtier. 
With  self-denial  worthy  of  a  better  cause,  he  is  serving  as  a 
screen  to  their  misdeeds,  exposing  himself  to  all  the  just 
consequences  of  his  assumed  all-powerfulness  which  make 
his  life  miserable,  his  existence  an  eternal  fear,  his  power  a 
derision,  his  position  a  shame. 

The  evolution  of  autocracy  is  indeed  complete.  For  it 
could  hardly  descend  lower,  it  could  hardly  present  a  more 
exhilarating,  pleasant,  exalting  spectacle  to  its  enemies. 

IV. 

But  how  ?  Is  it  possible  that  a  man  without  being  a  fool 
may  act  in  so  strange  a  mode  ?  How  can  he  remain  in  so 
disagreeable  a  position,  causing  the  misery  of  a  whole  na- 
tion, who  after  all  did  him  no  wrong  whatever  ?  How 
could  he  refuse  to  redress  public  wrongs  and  better  his  own 
life  by  a  stroke  of  the  pen,  if  only  he  could  ?  If  he  do  not, 
it  is  evident  that  in  reality  he  cannot.  There  must  be, 
most  likely,  some  hidden  force  and  hidden  party  which  hold 
a  power  over  him.  Such  a  doubt  is  very  common,  and  to 
answer  it  there  were  created  in  various  times  different  hy- 
potheses of  some  extremely  powerful  court  party,  to  which 
sometimes  the  name  of  old  aristocratic,  sometimes  that  of 
old  Slavophile  party  is  given,  and  so  forth.  They  alone 
prevent  the  Tzar  from  doing  that  good  to  his  country 
which  personally  he  would  be  quite  disposed  to  do. 

It  is  strange  how  sometimes  extremes  meet.  Just  the 
same  doubt — just  in  the  same  shape — rises  in  the  minds  of 


RUSSIA   AND   EUROPE.  367 

Russian  peasants,  and  is  answered  nearly  in  the  same  way. 
Only  with  the  peasants  the  touch  of  their  imagination  gives 
these  hypotheses  quite  a  fantastical  dress.  Sometimes  the 
legend  assumes  the  character  of  dramatic  performances, 
where  the  goc-d  principle  embodied  in  the  Tzar  is  overpow- 
ered by  the  opposite  force  embodied  now  in  the  Senate 
(usually  confounded  with  the  Synod,  a  permanent  ecclesias- 
tic council),  now  in  the  minister  (always  in  a  single  person, 
for  the  peasant  thinks  there  is  only  one  minister  as  there  is 
one  Tzar).  Sometimes  these  legends  give  the  part  of  bad 
genius  to  some  member  of  the  imperial  family.  During  the 
reign  of  Alexander  II.  this  not  too  flattering  part  was 
usually  conferred  to  the  Tzarevitch  (present  Tzar);  who 
fills  his  place  now,  when  he  becomes  Tzar  himself,  I  do  not 
know.  Somebody  must  be,  and  may  depend  on  it.  Many 
pages  may  be  filled  by  recording  the  naive  and  childish  con- 
trivances by  which  the  peasants  try  to  save  the  remainder  of 
their  belief  in  the  Tzar  against  the  rude  evidence  of  every- 
day wrongs  inflicted  by  his  orders. 

But  only  the  peasantry  indulge  in  Russia  in  such  reveries. 
And  even  they  "wiU  abandon  it  as  soon  as  some  glimpse  of 
culture  reach  their  minds.  Instructed  Russia  has  given  it 
up  long  ago,  knowing  perfectly  that  nothing  of  the  kind 
exists  in  Russia.  The  tales  about  old  Slavophile,  old 
aristocratic  party,  and  such  like,  have  quite  the  same  value 
as  the  peasants'  legends  about  the  rascality  of  the  Sjmod  or 
the  cunning  of  the  Senate.  Never  in  the  course  of  our 
history  was  the  upper  classes  able  to  acquire  any  political 
strength  of  their  own.  The  reader  remembers  how  our  soi- 
disant  aristocracy  was  created,  and  what  it  was  of  old.  Such 
it  remained  for  all  time.  In  the  first  cffntury  after  the 
transfer  of  the  capital  to  St.  Petersburg  it  seemed  to  be 
otherwise.  Situated  in  a  far  remote,  freshly  conquered 
country,  St.  Petersburg  was  but  a  waste  military  camp.  Its 
lower  classes  were  com2:)osed  of  foreign  Finish  tribes  ;  its 


368  RUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

ui^per  classes  of  military  and  civil  officers,  most  of  whom 
were  of  foreign  origin.    Pretorian  insurrection  was  extremely 
easy  in  such  a  town,  and  the  ambitious  foreigner  and  courtier 
were  able  some  times  to  put  their  foot  on  the  neck  of  their 
master.     It  was  due  not  to  the  strength  of  the  aristocracy, 
but  the  momentary  dislocation  of  the  State.     These  times, 
however,  have  passed  away  long  ago.     If  there  should  be  a 
Court  revolution,  it  will  be  that  which  is  directed  agaiust 
the  autocracy  as  a  principle,  and  is  calculated  on  the  im- 
mediate support  of  the  progressive  elements  of  the  whole 
country.    A  violent  change  of  government  without  changing 
principles  is  an  utter  impossibility,     A  coup  d'etat,  in  order 
to  rise  a  step  in  court  hierarchy,  will  hardly  cross  as  yet  the 
mind  of  a  modern  Field-Marshal  Minich.     At  the  Court 
there  is  no  force  whatever  which  could  oppose  effectually 
the  will  of  the  Tzar.     There  is  no  political  body,  no  aris- 
tocracy, no  statesmen  even,  in  the  European  sense  of  the 
word.     We  have  only  courtiers— a  type  already  forgotten  in 
Europe,  because  only  Eussia  is  the  unhappy  country  where 
the  will  of  one  makes  the  laws  for  millions.     And  what  is  a 
courtier  ?    It  is  a  man  in  whom  training,  from  generation 
to  generation,  has  developed  to  the  highest  degree  and  mar- 
vellous effectiveness  one  single  capacity — that  of  enforcing 
his  will  on  the  sovereign,  while  making  him  believe  he  is 
obeyed.     All  other  capacities,  all  feelings,  all  inclinations,  as 
things  useless  and  even  hurtful,  are  depressed  and  gi-adually 
destroyed  in  this  ignoble  representation  of  the  human  race 
called  courtiers.    Now  the  thing  which  is  the  most  dangerous 
and  disagreeable  impediment  in  the  courtier's  struggles  is 
undoubtedly  what  is   called    political   convictions— strong 
political  opinions.     Such  things  are  not  to  be  sought  in  the 
despotic  court.     A  courtier  may  accept  a  political  banner  as 
he  does  a  dress  in  the  court's  parades,  when  such  give  better 
chances  to  carry  him  on  in  the  good  graces  of  his  master. 
I  will  not  multiply  proofs  for  things  too  self-evident.     As  a 


KUSSIA  AND   EUROPE.  369 

matter  of  curiosity  rather  than  illustration,  let  us  consider 
for  a  moment  Mr.  Tolstoi.     There  is  no  man,  of  course, 
whose  reactionary  convictions  seem  to  be  more  intransigent, 
more  deeply  rooted.     And  yet  this  very  pillar  of  reaction,  in 
1859,  only  a  few  years  before  his  appearance  as  minister  of 
white  terror  and  obscurantism,  published  at  Brussels  a  veiy 
interesting   pamphlet    entitled    A    Voice  from  Germany.* 
Treating  of  the  European  politic  of  the  epoch,  the  author 
exposes  his  view  and  political  convictions  in  general.     He  is 
all  for  liberalism,  for. constitutional  guarantee,  for  respect 
to  the  will  of  the  nation.     He  pities  the  Hanover  Govern- 
ment, which  has  on  its  side  only  the  officers  of  the  Govern- 
ment, whilst  all  the  country  is  against  it  (p.  7)  (just  the  case 
in  Russia  now).      Still  less  satisfied  is  the  Liberal  Count 
with  the  conduct  of  the  Government  of  Bavaria,  where  the 
king  maintained  in  power,  for  full  nine  years,  a  minister  quite 
odious  to  the  country  (pp.  6,  7)  (just  the  case  of  Mr.  Tol- 
stoi in  Russia).     He  expresses  the  hope  that  the  rulers  of 
the  various    German  States  will  not  follow  the  pernicious 
example  of  Hanover,  and  will  not  crush  by  police  reprisals 
the    lawful  aspirations  of  their  subjects"  (p.   61).     ''Be- 
cause," he  says,  "  to  put  obstacles  to  the  progressive  reforms, 
when  they  become  urgent,  is  as  dangerous  as  to  make  appeal 
to  insurrection  :  it  is  setting  fire  to  the  edifice  from  another 
corner"  (p.  61).     He   is  a  strong  adversary  of  clericalism, 
and  stigmatizes  the  Italian  patriots  of  1848  for  having  made 
*'this  monstrous  alliance  of  liberalism  with  the  papism" 
(p.  12).     He  is  very  severe  on  Napoleon  UL,  in  whom  he 
cannot  put  confidence,  because  "  he  fights  for  the  freedom 
of  foreigners,  whilst   suppressing  the  freedom  at  home " 
(p.  14).     And  he  is  full  of  noble  indignation  against  des- 
potic governments,  which,  ''having  little  sympathy  with  the 
aspiration  of  their  countries,  shouted,  '  Let  us  have  war ! ' 

*  Une  Voix  (VAllemngne,  par  le  Comte  Dmitry  Tolstoy,  Bruxelles  : 
Muguardt,  editeur,  1859. 


370  EUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

wanting  war  in  order  that  people  may  forget  what  they  are, 
and  let  them  live  at  this  price"  (p.  10)  (just  what  he  is 
urging  the  Tzar  to  do  now). 

All  this  is  taken  from  a  copy  of  the  brochure  in  my  pos- 
session. All  this  the  Count  Dmitry  Tolstoi,  this  very  same 
present  minister,  wrote  with  his  own  hands  in  the  year  1859. 
He  had  hardly  the  time  to  return  from  his  journey  abroad 
when  his  liberalism  vanished  away.  In  the  year  1859  the 
influence  of  Grand  Duke  Constantine  (brother  of  Alexander 
II.)  was  predominant.  It  was  the  epoch  of  constitutional 
aspirations.  From  1863  Prince  Gagarin  and  the  anti- 
abolitionist  party  take  the  foremost.  Count  Dmitry  Tol- 
stoi, at  a  moment's  notice,  changes  the  inmost  of  his  soul's 
convictions,  and  becomes  the  right  hand  of  most  sordid 
reaction. 

With  people  of  this  sort  a  sovereign  has  no  reason  to  fear 
opposition.  If  the  Tzar  resolved  to  change  his  politics,  he 
would  have  only  a  sign  to  make ;  half  of  his  court  would 
become,  in  no  time,  of  the  color  required,  from  deep  red  to 
the  most  tender  blue,  provided  by  this  they  could  secure  for 
themselves  the  best  jilaces. 

V. 

But,  as  sure  as  there  is  no  material  obstacle  which  could 
prevent  the  Tzar  from  changing  policy,  so  sure  is  the  fact 
that  such  a  change  will  never  be  initiated  by  the  will  of  the 
Tzar. 

There  are  moral,  intellectual  impossibilities  no  less  insur- 
mountable than  the  material  one.  Despots  are  trained  as 
well  as  the  courtiers,  still  more  carefully  than  the  courtiers. 
If  the  despotism  exercised  by  one  transform  the  whole  court 
into  a  school  of  servility,  on  the  other  hand  those  hundred 
courtiers  react  on  their  master,  whom  they  surround  and 
educate  from  their  very  childhood.     One  thing  generates 


RUSSIA  AifD   EUROPE.  371 

the  other.  The  courtier  is  the  counterpart  of  the  despot ; 
the  despot  is  the  counterpart  of  the  courtier.  And  both  are 
equally  spoiling  each  other.  If  the  courtiers  have  an  insur- 
mountable aversion  to  free  institutions  because  they  will 
render  it  impossible  for  them  to  make  best  use  of  the  cunning 
craft  they  only  possess,  the  despot  is  as  fond  of  this  eternal 
show  of  ilunkeyism  and  obsequiousness,  of  this  possibility 
to  make  a  man  rise  and  fall  by  a  single  word,  of  all  this 
show  of  omnipotence,  however  void  it  may  be.  If  the  con- 
tinual concentration  of  thoughts  on  the  sole  object  to 
please  the  caprice  of  one  man,  narrow  the  minds  of 
courtiers,  depriving  them  of  the  capacity  for  any  compre- 
hensive view,  the  artificial  life  of  the  court,  with  nothing 
but  its  base  desires,  produces  around  the  despot  a  sort  of 
intellectual  vacuum  which  renders  him  still  narrower-minded 
than  his  courtiers. 

Having  the  power  to  transform  into  act  every  thought, 
every  whim  of  his,  he  is  preserved  from  all  that  may  suggest 
him  such  thoughts  or  whims.  It  is  a  fact  that  there  is  not  a 
single  man  in  the  hundred  and  one  millions  of  the  Tzar's 
subjects  who  is  more  watched  or  obsei-ved  in  his  personal 
intercourse,  whose  intellectual  food  is  submitted  to  stricter 
censorship,  or  more  carefully  selected,  than  that  of  the 
Tzar.  He  reads  only  extracts  of  what  is  thought  good  for 
him  to  know ;  he  does  not  meet  with  anybody  whom  his 
courtiers  would  like  him  to  shun.  There  are  hundreds  of 
ways  to  obtain  this  effect  without  seeming  to  impose  on  the 
sovereign's  pleasure.  And  that  is  done,  and  has  been  done, 
for  years  and  generations  ;  and  not  only  with  the  Tzar  him- 
self, but  with  every  member  of  his  family. 

What  is  more  hopeless  than  the  very  depravation  of  des- 
potism is  the  utter,  hardly  realizable  ignorance  prevailing 
in  the  court  on  the  commonest  questions,  most  element- 
ary conditions  of  the  country  they  are  raling.  We  must 
read  the  memoir  of  Senator  Tolovieff,  and  other  men  con- 


372  RUSSIA  UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

nected  with  the  former  reign  ;  we  must  hear  the  professors 
of  universities  allo\\-ed  to  deliver  private  lectures  to  small 
grand  dukes,  and  to  speak  to  them  occasionally ;  we  must 
give  a  glance  at  the  leaders  of  Mr.  Katkoff's  gazette,  which 
may  be  said  to  be  destined  for  the  personal  edification  of  the 
Emperor  and  his  family — to  form  a  feeble  idea  of  this 
strange,  sophisticated,  intellectual  world,  in  which  our  mas- 
ters live.  There  is  no  absurdity  about  Eussian  condition 
that  may  not  be  believed  there,  and  the  commonest  truisms 
will  seem  as  strange  as  if  they  have  told  of  Satan.  It  will 
not  be  at  all  surprising  if  the  Tzar  believe  that  Mr.  Tolstoi's 
policy  as  to  public  instruction  is  the  very  embodiment 
of  progress.  Did  not  Mr.  Katkoff  say  it  in  his  leaders, 
affirming,  for  instance,  that  in  this  jioint  Russia  is  far  more 
advanced  than  England  ?  When  Count  Tolstoi  fell  into  tem- 
porary disgi-ace  and  was  removed  from  the  post  of  Minister 
of  Public  Instruction  there  was  jo}"  in  all  Russia,  as  if  the 
country  had  been  freed  from  a  public  calamity.  Eye-wit- 
nesses say  that  fathers  joined  in  thanksgiving  for  the  blessing 
of  being,  on  behalf  of  their  children,  liberated  from  the  fear 
of  having  their  careers  ruined  and  their  hopes  destroyed.  It 
will  be  not  at  all  surprising,  however,  if  the  present  Emperor 
thinks  that  he  has  done  the  greatest  satisfaction  to  the  coun- 
try by  recalling  Count  Tolstoi  to  power,  and  fears  that  if  he 
dismiss  him  all  Russia  would  be  inundated  with  tears.  No 
absurdity,  however  gross,  will  be  surprising,  and  we  have 
many  evidences  of  blunders  no  less  enormous.  We  must 
transport  ourselves  many  centuries  back,  and  substitute  the 
effect  of  time  for  tlie  effect  of  social  distance  to  realize  some- 
thing of  the  intellectual  bewilderment  of  our  rulers  and 
masters.  A  scholar  of  Averroes'  times  resuscitated  would 
have  presented  in  our  times  no  much  greater  confusion  in  his 
ideas  on  the  science  thcWi  our  rulers  on  the  interior  politics. 
And  what  must  be  said  about  the  voluntary  misrepresenta- 
tions, about  phantom  and  imaginary  dangers,  invented  by  the 


RUSSIA   AND   EUROPE.  3<<. 

courtiers  in  order  to  impress,  to  puzzle,  and  frighten  their 
master,  who  being  on  such  a  superior  height  is  so  easily 
alarmed  ?  The  Senator  Tolovieii's  memoir  shows  evidence 
that  Tzar  Alexander  II.  was  seriously  afraid  of  such  an 
ab3urdity  as  a  murderous  attempt  on  the  part  of  anti- 
abolitionists  !  I  was  told  by  a  competent  person  that  for 
S0D18  time  Count  Loris  Melikoff  was  held  up  to  the  present 
Emperor  as  a  threatening  bogie  of  a  Court  revolutionist  I 
It  will  be  not  at  all  surprising  if  he  is  replaced  now  by 
some  military  general,  of  M.  Komaroff's  or  Skobeleli's  type. 
Only  a  man  with  exceptional  firmness  of  character,  with 
extraordinary  courage  and,  first  of  all,  with  quite  superior 
intellectual  capacity,  may  have  contrived  to  break  these  in- 
visible intellectual  and  moral  ties  and  catch  now  and  then 
a  glimpse  of  trutli.  A  man  who  is  not  favored  by  nature, 
a  man  who,  although  born  in  the  purple,  is  rather  of  unsatis- 
factory intellectual  power,  such  a  man  must  be  inevitably 
overcome  by  the  incessant  efforts  of  a  crowd  of  eager,  un- 
scrupulous people,  who  with  all  their  incapacity  to  real 
business  had  made  a  whole  science  of  the  art  of  leading 
their  master  by  the  nose,  of  playing  on  him  as  on  a  fiddle,  and 
of  putting  everything  to  their  profit,  his  caprices  and  his  as- 
pirations, his  good  and  his  bad  humor,  his  foibles  and  stub- 
bornness, his  vices  and  his  virtues,  if  he  has  any.*    No,  the 

*  The  reader  will  allow  me  to  give  a  little  amusing  anecdote  of  very 
little  significance  but  quite  authentic  and  characteristic,  how  the  most 
simple  contrivance  serves  to  make  a  fool  of  the  Tzar.  It  happened 
in  the  first  years  of  Alexander  III.'s  reign,  to  a  Samara  nobleman  of 

the  name  of  K .     He  -wanted  a  Governmental  allowance  of  200,000 

roubles  to  start  his  leather  manufactory.  Many  big  Russian  manu- 
facturers had  got  considerable  sums  of  State  money  "as  an  encourage- 
ment of  national  industry."    All  was  arranged  well.     Everybody  who 

had  to  be  bribed  was  bribed.     Mr.  K was  quite  sure  of  success, 

so  far  that,  returning  to  Samara,  he  did  not  choose  to  wait  the  few 
weeks  that  remained  before  the  Emperor's  definitive  confirmation,  and 
borrowed  from  a  Tartar  merchant  the  sum  nromised  him,  and  sot  to 


674  RUSSIA  UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

crowned  heads  of  our  time  can  no  longer  take  any  effective 
part  in  the  management  of  State  affairs.  They  are  organi- 
cally incapable  of  doing  it.  They  cannot  govern,  let  them 
reign  then,  as  long  as  peojjle  cannot  do  without  them.  If  they 
attempt  to  do  more  they  can  but  receive  the  punishment  due 
to  themselves,  which  is  a  curse  for  the  nation:  they  become 

work  at  once.  Great  was  his  disappointment  and  despair  when  he  received 
a  telegram  stating  bluntly  that  the  Emperor  did  not  comfirm  the 
allowance.  He  rushes  to  St,  Petersburg  to  his  protectors.  How  ?  What 
is  it  ?  Nobody  knew.  All  was  done  right,  as  promised.  But  the 
Emperor  refused.     A  whim  took  him.     "  It  is  quite  incomprehensible. 

We  cannot  help  it. "     Mr.  K deemed  himself  a  ruined  man.     But 

one  fine  morning,  when  he  left  the  Minister  of  the  Interior  be  was 
followed  by  Uolonatchalink,  head  clerk  of  one  of  the  numerous  offices. 
The  man  asked  him  plainly  if  he  consented  to  give  him  the  sum  of 

10,000  roubles  if  the  thing  was  put  right.     Mr.  K exclaimed  he 

would  be  happy  to  give  even  20,000.  The  clerk  refused  to  give  any  ex- 
planation and  they  parted.     The  next  month  Mr.  K received  a 

telegram  stating:  the  allowance  is  granted  by  the  Emperor.  Full  of 
exultation,  he  rushed  once  more  to  St.  Petersburg,  received  his  200,000, 
found  the  clerk  his  benefactor  and  presented  him  the  20,000  roubles 
promised.  Touched  by  such  an  act  of  honesty  and  faithfulness  to  a 
promise  escaped  in  a  momentary  excitement,  the  clerk   said  that  he 

wanted  to  tranquillize  the  conscience  of  Mr.  K by  explaining  to  him 

that  in  obtaining  for  him  the  allowance  no  underhand  means  were  em- 
ployed, and  all  was  done  with  complete  honesty  and  fairness.  He  then 
told  him  the  small  device  which  was  used  to  make  the  Emperor  change 
his  mind.  "We  have,"  he  said,  "always  a  great  number  of  things  to 
present  for  the  Emperor's  examination.  And  we  know  beforehand  what 
he  will  he  pleased  to  read  and  what  will  be  unpleasant.  Now  all  depends 
on  the  order  in  wliich  a  petition  such  as  yours  is  placed.  If  before  it  wo 
put  four  or  five  things  which  will  be  unpleasant  to  the  Emperor,  arriving 
at  your  petition  he  will  be  in  bad  humor  and  will  refuse  it.  If,  on  the 
contrary,  M'e  put  before  it  one  after  another  five  things  that  will  be  agree- 
able to  liim  to  read,  on  reaching  your  petition  he  will  be  put  in  good 
humor  and  will  grant  it  at  once." 

Nothing  more  simple  indeed.     The  fact  is  perfectly  authentic,  and 
would  be  difficult  to  invent. 


RUSSIA  AND   EUROPE.  375 

marionettes,  whose  wires  are  pulled  by  unseen  courtiers,  as  un- 
scrupulous as  they  are  irresponsible.  To  put  hope  in  a  Tziar's 
sudden  change  of  mind  is  to  put  hope  in  the  courtiers' 
turning  suddenly  honest,  and  willing  to  sacrifice  their  am- 
bitions and  interests  to  the  weal  of  the  country. 

No ;  it  is  sheer  madness  to  hope  that  the  political  re- 
organization of  Russia  will  be  due  to  the  initiative  of  the 
Tzar  himself.  If  some  optimistical  hope  of  this  kind  were 
pardonable  in  the  beginning  of  the  former  reign,  now,  after 
thirty  years  of  experience,  we  may  doubt  the  very  sincerity 
of  such  a  tardy  hopefulness.  It  is  far  more  likely  to  be  a 
mere  device  to  conceal  pusillanimity  of  heart  ;  and  there  is 
before  us  the  necessity  of  appealing  to  other  things  than  the 
licking  of  despots'  hands.  The  autocracy  will  be  destroyed 
there  may  be  no  doubt  of  it,  but  it  will  be  done  by  some 
force.  No  country  had  ever  to  sustain  so  hard  a  struggle 
for  its  political  liberty  as  Eussia  of  to-day.  I  do  not  speak 
of  the  unhappy  social  conditions  and  the  enormous  concen- 
tration of  power  in  the  hands  of  the  Central  Government. 
The  worst  is,  that  in  other  countries  the  struggle  for  liberty 
was  over  some  time  ago,  when  civilization  had  not  yet 
put  at  the  disposition  of  Government  those  material  advan- 
tages of  perfected  weapons  and  surprisingly  quick  com- 
munications— advantages  which  are  all  in  favor  of  the 
Government  and  which  would  have  rendered  utterly  impos- 
sible or  fruitless  many  a  brilliant  insurrection,  many  a 
sj)lendid  campaign  of  the  heroes  of  liberty. 

But  there  is  no  obstacle  which  cannot  be  overcome  by 
energy,  spirit  of  sacrifice,  and  courage.  The  Eussian  des- 
potism must  and  will  be  destroyed  ;  for  it  is  not  permitted 
to  the  stupid  obstinacy  of  one,  nor  to  the  infamous  egoism 
of  a  few,  to  arrest  the  progress  and  light  of  a  nation  of  a 
hundred  million  souls.  We  can  only  wish  that  the  mode  of 
execution  of  the  unavoidable  may  be  the  least  disastrous,  least 
sanguinary,  and  most  humane.     And  there  is  a  force  which 


376  KUSSIA   UNDER  TUE  TZARS, 

can  strongly  contribute  to  this — it  is  the  public  opinion  of 
European  countries. 

It  is  strange,  but  quite  true  ;  Eassian  governmental  circles 
are  much  more  impressed  by  what  is  said  about  them  in 
Europe,  than  by  the  wailing  of  all  Eussia  from  the  White 
Sea  down  to  the  Euxine.  There  are  many  instances  of  this. 
All  Eussia  heard  of  the  horrors  of  our  political  prisons  and 
shuddered.  Year  after  year  passed,  yet  the  Government  never 
thought  of  taking  any  steps  to  ameliorate  them,  nor  gave 
a  sign  of  having  it  in  mind  to  do  it.  But  some  French 
papers  began  the  agitation  in  favor  of  the  unfortunate  Jessy 
Helfman,  saying  that  the  Government,  after  having  com- 
muted her  sentence  of  death,  killed  her  by  slow  torture  in 
the  fortress  ;  and  the  Government  of  the  Tzar  takes  an  un- 
heard-of measure  :  it  allows  foreign  reporters  to  visit  the 
prisoner  in  her  provisory  cell  to  show  that  she  is  alive,  and 
justify  itself  from  the  accusations.  Thousands  of  com- 
plaints and  remonstrances  of  the  most  respectable  bodies  of 
citizens  are  not  honored  by  an  answer,  and  do  not  produce 
on  the  wooden  ears  of  the  governing  class  more  effect  than 
the  humming  of  an  importunate  gaat.  But  some  leaders 
appear  in  the  Times,  and  a  correspondent  telegraphs  to  this 
paper  (Dec.  24, 1884),  "  An  extremely  sore  feeling  has  lately 
shown  itself  here  in  the  highest  circles,  in  which  the  English 
Press  is  accused  of  having  lately  taken  to  basing  its  opinion 
about  Eussia  upon  the  prejudiced  writings  of  disguised  and 
long-expatriated  Nihilists. " 

And  to  give  vent  to  the  soreness  of  the  higher  circle's 
feelings,  their  writers  spread  some  absurd  libels  about 
Nihilists. 

Such  instances  are  easy  to  be  multiplied.  What  is  the 
cause  of  this  surprising  and  rather  incomprehensible  sen- 
sitiveness ?  It  may  be  urged  that  European  public  opinion 
has  a  great  influence  on  the  very  material  condition  of 
the  Eussian  Government,  which  depends  so  much  on  foreign 


RUSSIA  AND  EUROPE.  377 

money  markets.  Yes,  it  is  quite  true  ;  but  it  is  not  enough. 
The  conduct  of  the  Government  in  its  interior  policy  is  far 
more  ruinous  than  any  loss  that  may  ever  be  inflicted  on 
Eussia  from  this  part.     It  does  not  frighten  it,  however. 

The  sensitiveness  of  our  camarille  to  the  sense  of  blame 
from  the  European  press  must  have  some  moral  cause. 
There  must  be  something  of  the  very  nature  of  the  slave  in 
the  cruel  master  of  to-day.  His  cruelty  is  prompted 
by  cowardice.  Being  merciless  toward  the  feeble,  he  is 
mean  and  timorous  before  the  strong  he  is  bound  to  rec- 
ognize. 

However  it  may  be,  the  fact  is  a  fact :  the  Russian  gov- 
ernmental caste  is  extremely  zealous  to  conceal  from  the 
public  opinion  of  Europe  their  misdeeds,  and  very  sensitive 
to  what  is  said  about  them  abroad. 

]^ut  if  the  influence  of  European  public  opinion  was 
limited  only  to  the  vexing  of  the  governing  caste,  it  would 
have  been  of  little  value  indeed  to  have  appealed  to  it.  Its 
influence  may  be  exercised  in  a  much  more  effective  way. 

It  is  a  mistake,  even  nonsense,  I  dare  say,  to  affirm  that 
the  Russian  Government  is  supported  by  the  mere  physical 
force  of  its  soldiers  or  the  ignorance  of  its  peasants.  If  all 
those  who  are  against  the  existing  r'^gime  in  their  heart  had 
resolved  to  show  it  openly,  the  autocracy  could  not  stand 
a  single  day.  However  small  in  numbers,  the  instructed 
classes  are  the  moving  spirits  and  the  nervous  centres  of 
every  social  body.  These  classes  are  in  immense  majority 
against  the  existing  regime.  There  is  a  great  deal  of  differ- 
ence in  the  parties  that  divide  it.  But,  besides  those  who 
do  not  care  about  anything  at  all,  and  a  lot  of  scoundrels  who 
profit  out  of  the  existing  anarchy  in  the  administration  to 
fill  their  own  pockets,  all  these  classes  are  against  the  existing 
regime.  And  the  reader  who  remembers  what  we  have  just 
exposed  will  surely  find  they  have  sufficient  reason  to  be  so. 
If  these  classes  had  resolved  to  act  boldly  and  energetically. 


378  RUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

without  being  afraid  of  the  temporary  repression  the  Gov- 
ernment may  inflict  on  them,  the  autocracy,  decrepit  and 
timorous  as  it  is,  odious  to  a  great  part  of  its  own  function- 
aries, could  not  stand  against  their  common  effort.  If  the 
Press — when  Eussia  had  still  a  Press — would  have  profited 
by  the  many  moments  of  governmental  panic  after  the  Ter- 
rorists' successful  attempt,  had  had  the  courage  to  ask 
energetically  as  one  man  for  freedom  and  reform,  the  Gov- 
ernment would  have  hesitated  perhaps  before  suspending 
it.  If  now  all  the  Zemstvos  made  a  general  demand 
for  a  free  constitution,  the  Government  could  not  disperse 
them  all.  Such  an  act  would  produce  a  more  disastrous 
and  permanent  effect  on  tlie  Government's  funds  and 
finances  than  a  permanent  war. 

It  is  on  these  elements  of  Russian  society  that  the  public 
opinion  of  free  countries  has — as  every  Russian  will  tell — a 
most  decisive  and  beneficial  influence.  Every  energetic 
manifestation  of  sympathy  for  our  liberative  movement 
from  the  part  of  the  people  of  the  leading  countries  is  an 
event  for  Russia,  and  has  no  less  a  moral  effect  on  our  people 
than  a  manifestation  of  opposition  in  Russia  itself.  That  is 
the  mode  in  which  European  countries  can  contribute  to 
strengthening  the  liberal  movement  of  our  country. 

And  no  moment  is  more  opportune  for  this  kind  of  moral 
intervention  than  the  present  one.  For  the  Russian  libera- 
tive and  revolutionary  movement  is  passing  now  through 
an  important  phase  of  its  development.  Having  begun  by 
terrorism,  it  is  entering  in  the  period  which  may  be 
called  insurrectional.  The  attempts  against  the  functionary 
and  the  Emperor  arc  no  longer  its  means  of  struggle.  Hav- 
ing acquired  great  adherence  in  the  army,  and  among  the 
working  classes  of  the  capital  and  other  principal  towns,  it 
has  enlarged  its  aim  and  its  prospects.  It  has  written  on  its 
banner  open,  though  unexpected  attack,  against  the  autocracy 
itself.  Insurrections  of  the  kind  of  that  of  the  Decembrists  of 


KUSSIA  AND   EUROPE.  379 

1825,  only  more  exclusively  militaiy,  are  now  tlie  cliief  ob- 
ject of  Eussian  revolutionists.  This  is  not  an  easy  task, 
nor  to  be  prepared  from  one  fortnight  to  another,  as  is  an 
attempt  against  the  person  of  an  Emperor.  It  is  a  long  and 
hard  work,  and  many  a  noble  victim  may  fall ;  many  un- 
successful attempts  may  precede  the  definitive  victory  of 
Eussian  liberty.  The  quickness  of  their  success  depends 
entirely  on  the  degree  of  preparation  of  the  bulk  of  Eussian 
society,  of  the  grade  of  its  energy  in  the  moment  of  the 
starting  of  such  bold  attempts. 

Whether  the  initiative  of  the  attack  on  the  autocracy  will 
belong  to  the  revolutionists,  or  the  more  moderate  part  of 
Eussian  society  will  outstrip  them  by  pacific  but  energetic 
demonstrations,  which  we  revolutionists  will  be  the  first 
to  applaud — in  both  cases  the  public  opinion  of  European 
countries  is  of  great,  inestimable  value.  And  that  is  the 
reason  why  we  appeal  to  it. 

Addressing  ourselves  now  to  the  English  people,  we  have 
not  the  slightest  doubt  that  such  an  appeal  will  find  echo 
in  many  thousands  of  English  hearts.  There  was  never  a 
striving  of  any  country  for  its  liberty  which  found  not  the 
warmest  support  in  England  :  from  those  of  the  small  tribes 
of  Candiots,  to  those  of  Hungarian,  Polish,  and  Italian 
patriots.  Our  cause  appeals  no  less  to  every  generous  being. 
Our  sufferings  are  something  unheard-of  in  the  bloody 
annals  of  despotism.  It  is  not  a  political  party,  I  repeat,  it 
is  a  whole  nation  of  a  hundred  millions  that  is  stifled,  a 
nation,  which  by  the  intelligence,  aptness  to  instruction, 
and  kind-heartedness  of  its  masses ;  by  the  good  and  un- 
selfish disposition  of  its  upper  classes  and  generous  ardor 
of  the  young  generations,  presents  the  best  guarantees  of  a 
lasting  progress  and  happy  future. 

Humanity  is  the  chief,  the  main  claim  of  our  cause  for 
sympathy  and  support.     But  it  is  not  the  sole  one. 

It  was  a  question  of  pure  humanity  when  the  Bulgarian 


380  BUSSIA   UNDER  THE  TZARS. 

horrors  were  spoken  of.  It  was  a  question  of  humanity 
when  Mr.  Gladstone  interrupted  diplomatic  communica- 
tion with  the  King  of  Naples,  nicknamed  Re  Bomba,  for 
the  atrocity  committed  against  the  Carbonari.  With 
Eussia  it  is  no  longer  a  question  of  humanity  only,  but  of 
general  safety  and  common  interest.  However  badly  ad- 
ministered, however  ruined,  it  is  too  enormous  a  body  not 
to  endanger  by  its  presence  other  political  bodies  which  sur- 
round. It  has  an  army  of  a  million  soldiers,  who  although 
dying  from  hunger  and  half  clad,  by  its  courage  on  the 
field,  is  not  inferior  to  any  other  in  the  world.  Such  an 
enormous  force  left  to  the  uncontrolled  caprice  of  a  despot 
or  a  courtier  is  surely  a  great  inconvenience  for  human  in- 
tercourse. To  have  such  a  State  for  a  neighbor  is  nearly  as 
unpleasant  as  to  sit  by  an  unfettered  madman  at  an  evening 
party.  Nobody  can  answer  for  what  he  will  do  the  very 
next  moment.  Now,  when  I  am  writing,  an  absurd,  useless, 
bloody  Afghan  war  is  perhaps  at  hand.  No  Russian  parlia- 
ment would  have  answered  the  proposition  otherwise  than 
with  laughter.  It  is  a  well-known  device  of  despots  to 
get  rid  of  a  burning  internal  question.  If  it  pass  over  now 
who  may  answer  for  to-morrow,  when  the  need  of  such  a 
diversion  may  be  more  stringent,  or  the  ambition  of  some 
bloodthirsty  soldier  more  prevailing  ? 

Only  the  destruction  of  Russian  autocracy  will  keep 
Eussia  in  certainty  of  peace,  and  yet  rid  Europe  from  the 
external  danger.  That  is  a  consideration  on  which  it  is 
superfluous  to  insist. 

I  allow  myself  to  point  out  another  consideration  which 
has  not  so  great  an  interest  for  Englishmen,  but  which  they 
will  allow  me  to  mention  in  a  few  words  : 

In  1547  the  Tzar,  John  IV.,  sent  to  Germania,  a  Sax- 
onian  of  the  name  Shlitte,  ordering  him  to  obtain  for  the 
Moscow  service  artisans  and  scholars  of  every  kind.  Shlitte 
did  as  bidden,  and  after  some  time  he  had  more  than  a 


RUSSIA   AND   EUROPE.  3S1 

hundred  people  with  whom  he  proposed  to  return  to  Mos- 
coria.  But  the  magister  of  the  Livonian  order,  which  then 
occupied  the  Baltic  province,  remonstrated  with  the  Emperor, 
Charles  V.,  of  the  danger  that  might  come  to  Livonia  and 
neighboring  German  states  if  the  Moscovite  Empire  passed 
from  barbarity  to  culture.  The  German  Emperor  listened 
to  the  remonstrance,  and  the  Livonian  magister  was  allowed 
to  stop  Shlitte's  hundred  men  at  Lubeck,  and  never  to  allow 
a  single  scholar  or  artisan  to  cross  the  Moscow  frontier. 

What  in  the  sixteenth  century  the  Livonian  did,  the  Ger- 
man Chancellor  is  doing  now.  Eussia  would  be  too  strong 
for  him,  once  free.  And  the  Iron  Prince  is  doing  his  best  to 
prevent  the  freedom  to  cross  the  Russian  frontier.  He  does 
not  want  to  appeal  to  any  foreign  power ;  to  prevent  such 
an  annoyance,  he  has  found  the  best  ally  in  Count  Tolstoi 
and  his  consorts.  These  work  for  their  own  as  well  as  for  his 
interest.  What  the  triumvirs  would  fail  perhaps  to  main- 
tain by  their  own  exertion,  they  do  with  the  great  personal 
influence  and  authority  of  the  German  Chancellor  over  the 
Tzar.  The  service  is  mutual.  Tolstoi  and  company  are 
masters  of  the  State's  cash-box.  Bismarck  is  the  master  in 
Europe.  Eussia  of  to-day  is  nothing  more  than  a  Caliban, 
a  savage  and  deformed  slave,  whom  the  Prussian  Prospero 
with  the  three  hairs  on  his  head  may  use  for  every  base  work 
he  likes.  And  with  such  a  slave  on  his  chain,  what  may 
this  Prospero  not  venture  ?  As  long  as  Eussia  remains 
what  it  is  he  will  be  the  dictator  and  arbiter  of  Europe,  and 
so  long  Prussian  militarism,  which  is  the  scourge  of  all 
civilized  Europe,  will  remain  unchecked. 

All  who  are  for  progress,  for  peace  and  humanity,  may 
unite  in  a  moral  crusade  against  Eussian  despotism. 


The  Twelfth  Thousand  now  ready, 

THE  RUSSIANS 

AT  THE 

GATES  OF  HERAT. 

By  CHARLES  MARVIN, 

Principal  authority  of  the  English  press  on  the  Central  Asia  Dispute. 

Paper,  50  Cents.  -  -  Cloth,  $1.00. 

ILLUSTRATED   WITH  PORTRAITS  AND  MAPS. 


"  A  perfect  mine  of  information." — N.   Y.  Times. 

"  The  most  important  contribution  to  a  complete  understandirg  of 
the  present  quarrel  between  England  and  Russia." — N.   Y.  Tribune. 

"  Precisely  meets  the  public  want.  The  sale  ought  to  reach  100,000 
at  least. " — N.   Y.  Journal  of  Commerce. 

"It  is  an  admirable  summary  ;  as  an  introduction  and  key  to  the 
daily  despatches  it  is  invaluable. " — N.   Y.  Evening  Post. 

"  Mr.  Marvin  is  the  best  informed  man  in  England  on  the  subject. 
,    .    .   We  commend  his  book." — Washington  Army  and  Navy  Register. 

"  The  book  abounds  in  vivid  descriptions  and  is  invaluable  at  this 
time. " — Philadelphia  Bulletift. 

"  Well  written,  highly  impartial,  and  the  best  summary  of  the  ques- 
tions now  in  issue.  It  is  heartily  recommended  to  everybody  who  cares 
to  understand  the  Herat  trouble. " — Boston  Beacon. 

"  Absolutely  necessary  to  an  intelligent  comprehension  of  the  im- 
pending struggle,  no  work  has  been  put  forth  containing  so  much 
accurate  and  trustworthy  information  as  this." — N'ewark  Advertiser. 


For  sale  by  all  booksellers,  or  sent,  post-paid,  by  the  publishers. 

CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS, 
y4j  and  7^5  Broadway,  New   York. 


An  In7ier  History  of  Russian  Nihilism, 


UNDERGROUND  RUSSIA 

Revolutionary  Profiles  and  Sketches  from  Life. 

By  Stepniak,  formerly  Editor  of  Zemlia  i  Voila 

(Land  and  Liberty).    With  a  Preface  by 

Peter   Lavroff. 


1  Volume,  I'Zmo,    -    -    $1.25. 


The  very  great  importance  of  this  remarkable  book  has  now  come  to 
be  generally  recognized.  Throughout  all  Western  Europe  it  has  created 
a  most  profound  impression,  and  in  Russia  it  marks  an  epoch  in  the 
history  of  Nihilism.  How  serious  and  significant  is  its  inP.uence,  may 
be  gathered  from  an  extract  taken  from  a  long  letter  devoted  to  an 
account  of  the  book,  written  by  the  St.  Petersburg  correspondent  of  the 
New  York  Sun  : 

"At  this  moment  the  Russian  educated  classes  have  forgotten  all  about  their  newly 
crowned  autocrat  and  his  manifesto.  Their  attention  is  so  much  concentrated  on 
underground  Russia  for  the  time  being,  it  seems  as  though  there  were  no  over- 
ground Russia.  This  has  been  brought  about  by  a  wonderful  book,  UNDER- 
GROUND RUSSIA,  by  a  well-known  Nihilist  journalist,  Stepniak  (son  of  the 
Steppes).  The  hook  first  appeared  in  Italian,  and  on  that  account  the  Czar's 
ministers  were  greatly  incensed  against  the  Italian  government.  We  hear  that 
an  English  edition  of  the  work  has  appeared  in  London  and  New  York,  and  that 
the  book  is  about  to  be  put  into  French  and  German.  The  number  of  Russians 
who  know  Italian  or  English  is  limited,  so  the  Italian  book  of  the  Russian  author 
has  been  translated  into  Russian.  Thousands  of  manuscript  copies  of  UNDER- 
GROUND RUSSIA  are  now  circulated  here  from  hand  to  hand,  far  and  wide, 
and  by  its  attempts  to  seize  the  book  the  government  has  made  the  forbidden 
fruit  all  the  sweeter.  In  short,  UNDERGROUND  RUSSIA  is  the  all-absorbing 
topic  of  the  day." 


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CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS, 

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Sterling  Biographies. 

Peter  tlic  Great,  Emperor  of  Siussia.     A  study  of  His- 
torical Biography.     By  Eugene  Schuyler,  Th.D.,  LL.D.    2  vols., 
8vo.     Wiih  more  than  200  Superb  Illustrations.     $10  00. 
I'A  work  which  reflects  upon  the  author  very  great  credit  as  a  painstaking  and  con- 
scientious student,  one  who  has  toiled  for  the  benefit  of  English  readers  in  dark  places 
to  them  i:iacces>ible,  and  has  supplied  information  which  they  may  fairly  consider 
trujtwor;hy,  even  if  they  are,  to  a  certain  extent,  prejudiced  against  some  of  the 
sources  from  which  it  is  derived." — London  Athenaum. 

Liife  of  liOrd  Lavrrence.     By  R.  Bosworth  Smith,  M.A., 
Late  Fellow  of  Trinity  College,  Assistant  Master  at  Harrow  School. 
With  Maps  and  Portraits.     2  vols.,  8vo,  $5.00. 
"We  know  of  no  work  on  India  to  which  the  reader  can  refer  with  so  great  certainty 

for  full  and  dispassionate  information  relative  to  the  povernment  of  the  country,  the 

characteristics  of  its  people,  and  the  faithful  events  of  the  forty  eventful  years  of 

Lord  Lawrence's  Indian  career."— //a r/^rV  Magazitte. 

Memoirs  of  Prince  Ifletternicli.  Edited  by  Prince  Richard 
Metternich,  with  portrait  and  fac-similes.  8vo.  Vols.  I  and  II 
(1773-1815),  $5.00.  Vols.  Ill  and  IV  (1815-1829),  $5.00.  Vol.  V 
(1830-1835),  $2.50. 

Tlie  Correspondence  and  Diaries  of  Jolin  "Wilson 
CroKer,  Secretary  to  the  Admiralty  from  1809-1830,  etc.,  etc. 
Edited  by  Louis  J.  Jennings.   With  portrait.     2  vols.,  8vo,  f  5.00. 

''Since  the  Grenville  Memoirs  saw  the  light  no  documents  have  been  published  so 
rich  in  the  material  for  the  political  history  of  England  during  the  first  half  of  the 
century."— A^.  V.  Sun. 

"Altogether  these  volumes  must  be  regarded  as  among  the  most  valuable  and 
readable  contributions  which  have  yet  been  made  towards  an  elucidation  of  the 
political  history  of  thij  country  during  the  first  fifty  years  of  the  present  century." — 
Saturday  Revie-w, 

Our  Cliancellor:  Sketches  for  a  Historical  Picture.  By  MoRlTZ 
BuscH.     I  vol.,  crown  8vo,  $2.50. 

hi  uniform  style. 

Bismarck  in  the  Franco-German  "War,  1870-71.      i 

Yol.,  crown  8vo.,  $2.50. 

Fifty  Years'  Observation  of  Men  and  Events,  Civil 
and  Militarj'.     By  E.  D.  Keyes,  Brevet  Brig.-Gen.  U.S.A., 
and  late  Major-Gen.  U.S.V.     i  vol.,  i2mo,  $1.50. 
"Among  the  very  best  of  the  memories  of  America's  public  men." — Philadelphia 

Bulletin. 

Caesar.  A  Sketch.  By  James  Anthony  Froude,  M.A.  i  vol., 
i2mo,  gilt  top,  $1.50. 


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Army  Life  in  Russia. 

By    F.    V.    GREENE, 

Lieutenant  of  Engineers,  United  States  Army, 

I^te  Milittiry  Attachi  to  the   U.  S.  Legation  in  St.  Petersburg.,  and  author  oj 
"  The  /Russian  Army  and  its  Catnpaigiis  in  Turkey  in  1877-78." 


One  Volume,  12mo,     ....    $1.60. 

Lieutenant  Greene's  opportunities  for  general  as  well  as  technical 
observation  while  with  the  Russian  army  in  Turkey  were  such  as  have 
perhaps  never  fallen  to  any  other  student  of  the  war.  The  story  of  this 
personal  experience  is  embodied  in  this  volume,  which  contains  most 
vigorous  and  vivid  descriptions  of  battle  scenes,  in  the  chapters  on  the 
Shipka  Pass,  Plevna,  and  in  the  very  strong  and  excellent  chapter  on  the 
winter  campaign  across  the  Balkans  with  Gourko.  The  chapters  on  the 
Tsar  and  the  Russian  generals,  and  the  sections  devoted  to  the  Russian 
soldier,  to  St  Petersburg,  and  the  army  life  of  the  Russian  at  home,  are  of 
absorbing  interest. 


"His  sketches  are  excellently  well  done,  graphic,  evidently  not  exaggerated,  and 
very  readable.  It  is  a  book  that  will  be  read  with  pleasure,  and  one  that  contains  a 
great  deal  of  information." — Hart/ord  Courant. 

"This  volume  is  in  every  way  an  admirable  picture  of  army  life  in  Russia.  It  is 
clear,  concise,  discriminating,  and  often  very  picturesque.  The  author,  besides  pos- 
sessing an  excellent  style,  is  extremely  modest,  and  there  are  very  few  books  of  travel 
in  which  the  first  person  is  kept  so  absolutely  in  the  background." — International 
Revieiu. 

"  Lieutenant  Greene  writes  in  a  soldierly  way,  unaffected,  straightforward,  and 
graphic,  and,  though  he  has  a  keen  eye  for  the  picturesque,  never  sacrifices  to  rhetoric 
the  absolute  truthfulness  so  eminently  to  be  desired  in  a  narrative  of  this  sort. — Neiu 
York  World. 

"  He  was  with  the  Russian  army  throughout  t>;e  campaign,  enjoying  perfect  free- 
dom of  movement,  having  every  opportunity  to  visit  the  pomts  of  greatest  activity,  and 
to  see  the  operations  of  greatest  mom'-nt,  in  company  with  the  officers  who  conducted 
them.  His  book  is,  therefore,  for  all  the  purposes  of  ordinary  readers,  a  complete  and 
satisfactory  history  of  the  war,  founded  upon  intimate  personal  knowledge  of  its  events, 
and  of  its  spirit.  It  is  a  work  of  the  rarest  interest  and  of  unusual  merit." — New  York 
Evening  Post. 

"It  is  most  fortunate  for  the  reputation  of  our  country  and  our  army  that  we  had 
such  an  officer  to  send  to  the  far-away  land  of  Turkey  in  Europe,  and  most  creditable  to 
our  War  Department  that  it  sent  such  a  man.  His  book  deseves  to  be  universally  read, 
and  we  are  sure  that  no  person  whom  these  lines  may  lead  to  purchase  it  will  fail  to 
rejoice  that  they  have  been  written." — The  Nation. 


*#*  For    sale  by    all   booksellers,  or    sent,  post-paid,  upon    receipt   oj 
frice,  by 

CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S   SONS,  Publishers, 

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Turkish  life  in  War  Time. 

By    HENRY    O.    DWIGHT. 


One  Volume,  12mo, $1.60. 

Mr.  Dwight's  familiarity  with  the  languages  and  manners  of  the  capital, 
and  his  numerous  sources  of  information  from  almost  all  parts  of  Turkey, 
have  enabled  him  to  give  a  most  faithful  account  of  the  transactions  of  the 
war  as  seen  from  a  Turkish  point  of  view,  and  also  incidentally  to  put  his 
reader  in  possession  of  much  information  respecting  the  motley  races  under 

Turkish  rule. 

♦ 

"The  work  can  be  especially  commended  as  a  graphic,  and  clear,  and  never-wearying 
story." — N.  Y.  Comntercial  Advertiser. 

"The  book  fills  a  place  in  the  literature  relating  to  its  subject  which,  so  far  as  we  can 
judge,  would  be  empty  without  it." — Boston  Congregationalist. 

"It  is  even  more  charming  than  a  good  book  of  travel  ;  for  the  author  pictures  scenes 
with  which  he  is  familiar,  and  knows  the  full  value  of  every  incident  he  records." — Cin- 
tinttati  Christian  Standard. 

"  It  abounds  in  stirring  incident  of  most  exciting  times,  graphic  descriptions  of 
thrilling  scenes,  and  information  of  importance  to  statesmen  and  of  great  interest  to  the 
general  reader." — A^.  V.  Observer. 

"A  better  idea  of  the  Turkish  character  may  be  gained  through  the  many  anecdotes 
and  descriptions  of  scenes  given  by  the  writer,  than  by  the  study  of  any  previous  history 
with  which  we  are  acquainted." — Baptist  Weekly. 

"  No  book  yet  published  covers  precisely  the  same  ground,  or  handles  the  subject  in 
precisely  the  same  way.  We  find  ourselves,  in  its  pertisal,  lending  very  much  the  sort 
of  attention  to  it  that  we  should  to  the  narrative  of  a  friend  who  had  passed  through  ihe 
scenes  which  Mr.  Dwight's  letters  portray." — Syracuse  Herald. 

"This  book  is  the  most  vivid  and  faithful  sketch  of  Turkish  character  thnt  we  have 
ever  seen.  .  .  .  It  is  mainly  a  series  of  interesting  notes  and  sketches,  givin;j  those 
little  details  of  life  and  thought  from  day  to  day,  in  a  time  of  great  excitement,  which 
are  so  essential  in  order  to  gain  an  accurate  knowledge  of  any  peopk-." — The  Nation. 

"  The  book  has  more  than  a  transient  value.  It  is  a  contribution  to  history.  The 
author  has  not  only  descriptive  talent,  but  a  gift  for  discerning  the  meaning  of  the  political 
and  military  manoeuvres,  which  encompassed  Constantinople.  While  sufficiently  mter- 
esting  to  the  general  reader,  the  book  is  full  of  information  for  the  student  of  manners 
and  of  pol  tical  affairs." — N.  Y.  Christian  Advocate. 

"It  is  to  us  admirable  in  every  sense.  It  is  judicious,  discrimirrating,  comprehen- 
sive, impartial,  free  from  animosity  in  its  thorough  and  candid  criticisms ;  eminently 
clear,  vigorous,  and  animated  in  expression  ;  tells  us  just  what  we  wish  to  know,  and 
wastes  no  time  in  doing  it The  b'>ok  is  one  to  which  the  reader  can  sur- 
render himself  and  simply  enjoy." — A''.  Y.  Christian  Intelligencer. 

"'Turkish  Life  in  War  Time,'  does  not  pretend  to  be  a  history  of  the  Russian  wa.T, 
but  it  is  a  more  valuable  work  than  any  so-called  history  we  have  seen.  It  is  a  record, 
the  almost  daily  record,  of  a  very  keen  observer,  who  set  down  the  events  that  he  saw, 
and  who,  from  acquaintance  with  the  Orient,  understood  the  be.aring  of  those  events.  I<: 
has  all  the  interest  of  a  personal  narrative,  and  all  the  weight  that  we  accord  to  an  honest 
and  well-informed  observer.  It  is  to  such  records  of  eye-witnesses  as  these  that  futura 
bistorians  must  resort." — Hartford  Courant. 


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A  series  of  Books  narrating  the  HISTORY  OF  GREECE  AND  ROME,  and  of  their 

relations  toother  Countries  at  Successive  Epochs.     Edited  by  the  Rev.  G-  W. 

COX,  M.  A.,  Author  of  the  "  Aryan  Mythology,"  "  A  History  of 

Greece,'^  etc.,  and  jointly  by  CHARLES  SANKEY, 

M.  A.,  late  Scholar  of  Queen's  College,  Oxford. 


Volumes  already  issued  in  the  "  Epochs  of  Ancient  History."    Each  one  volum* 

12mo,  cloth,  $1.00. 


The  GREEKS  and  the  PERSIANS.  By  the  Rev.  G.  W.  Cox,  M.  A.,  late  Scholar  of 
Trinity  College,  Oxford  :  Joint  Editor  of  the  Series.     With  four  colored  Maps. 

The  EARLY  ROMAN  EMPIRE.  From  the  Assassination  of  Julius  Caesar  to  the 
Assassination  of  Domitian.  By  the  Rev.  W.  Wolfe  C.^pes,  M.  A.,  Reader  of  An- 
cient History  in  the  University  of  Oxford.     With  two  colored  maps. 

The  ATHENIAN  EMPIRE  from  the  FLIGHT  of  XERXES  to  the  FALL  of 
ATHENS.  By  the  Rev.  G.  W.  Cox,  M.  A.,  late  Scholar  of  Trinity  College,  Oxford  : 
Joint  Editor  of  the  Series.     With  five  Maps. 

The  ROMAN  TRIUMVIRATES.  By  the  Very  Rev.  Charles  Merivale,  D.  D., 
Dean  of  Ely. 

EARLY  ROME,  to  its  Capture  by  the  Gauls.  By  Wilhblm  Ihne,  Author  of  ' '  History 
of  Rome."'    With  Map. 

THE  AGE  OF  THE  ANTONINES.    By  the  Rev.  W.  Wolfe  Capes,  M.  A.,  Reader 

of  Ancient  History  in  the  University  at  Oxford. 

The  GRACCHI,  MARIUS,  and  SULLA.    By  A.  H.  Bbeslv.    With  Maps. 

THE  RISE  OF  THE  MACEDONIAN  EMPIRE.  By  A.  M.  Curtbis,  M.  A.  i 
vol.,  i6mo,  with  maps  and  plans. 

TROY — Its  Legend,  History,  and  Literature,  with  a  sketch  of  the  Topography  of  the 
Troad.     By  S.  G.  W.  Benjamin,     i  vol.  i6mo.     With  a  map. 

ROME  AND  CARTHAGE.    By  R.  Bosworth  Smith,  M.A. 

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The  ERA  of  the  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION.  By  F.  Seebohm,  Author  ol 
"  The  Oxford  Reformers — Colet,  Krasmus,  More.'" 

The  CRUSADES.     By  the  Rev.  G.W.Cox,  M. A.,  Author  of  the  "  History  of  Greece." 

The    THIRTY    YEARS'    WAR,     1618—1643.     By  Samuel  Rawson  Gardi.-.er. 

The  HOUSES  of  LANCASTER  and  YORK;  with  the  CONQUEST  and  LOSS 
of  FRANCE.     By  James  Gairdner,  of  the  Public  Record  Office. 

The  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  and  FIRST  EMPIRE  ;  an  Historical  Sketch. 
By  W.M.  O'Connor  Morris,  with  au  Appendix  by  Hon.  Andrew  D.  White. 

The  AGE  OF  ELIZABETH.     By  the  Rev.  1\L  Creighton,  M.A. 

The  PURITAN  REVOLUTION.     By  J.  Langto.v  Sanford. 

The  FALL  of  the  STUARTS;  and  WESTERN  EUROPE  from  1678  to  1697. 
By  ihe  Rev.  Edward  Hale,  M.A.,  Assist.  Master  at  Eton. 

The  EARLY  PLANTAGENETS  .ind  their  relation  to  the  HISTORY  of  EUROPE  ; 
the  foiinJ.itiou  and  growth  of  CONSTITUTIONAL  GOVERNMENT.  By  the  Kev. 
Wm.  Stlibbs,  M.A.,  etc.,  Proiessor  of  Modern  History  in  the  University  of  Oxford. 

The  BEGINNING  of  the  MIDDLE  AGES ;  CHARLES  the  GREAT  and 
ALFRKD;  the  HISTORY  of  Ei\GL.A.ND  in  its  connection  with  that  of  EUROPE 
in  the  NINTH  CENTURY.     By  the.  Very  Rev.  R.  W.  Chijrch,  M.A. 

The  AGE   of  ANNE.     By  Edward  E.  Morris,  M.A.,  Editor  of  the  Series. 

The    NORMANS   IN   EUROPE.     By  the  Rev.  A.  H.  Johnson,M.A. 

EDWARD   III.     By  the  Rev.  W.  Warburton,  M.A. 

FREDERICK  the  GREAT  and  the  SEVEN  YEARS'  WAR.    By  F.  W.  Longman, 

of  Ballic  College,  Oxford. 

The  EPOCH  of  REFORM,     1S30  to  1850.     By  Justin  McCarthy. 

The  above  15  volumes  in  Roxburg  Style,  Leather  Labels  and  Gilt  Top.      Put 
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A  New  Edition,  Library  Style. 


FROM  THE  EARLIEST  TIME  TO  THE  PERIOD  OF  ITS  DECLINE- 

By  Dr.  THEOCOR  MOMMSEU. 

Translated,  with  the  author's  sanction  and  additions,  by  the  Rev.  W.  P.  Dickson,  Regius 
Professor  of  Biblical  Criticism  in  the  University  of  Glasgow,  late  Classical  Examiner  oi 
the  University  of  St.  Andrews.  With  an  introduction  by  Dr.  Lbonhard  Schmitz,  and 
a  copious  Index  of  the  whole  four  volumes,  prepared  especially  for  this  edition. 

REPRINTED  FROM  THE  REVISED  LONDON  EDITION. 
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Dr.  Mommsen  has  long  been  known  and  appreciated  through  his  re- 
searches into  the  languages,  laws,  and  institutions  of  Ancient  Rome  and 
Italy,  as  the  most  thoroughly  versed  scholar  now  living  in  these  depart- 
ments of  historical  investigation.  To  a  wonderfully  exact  and  exhaustive 
knowledge  of  these  subjects,  he  unites  great  powers  of  generalization,  a 
vigorous,  spirited,  and  exceedingly  graphic  style  and  keen  analytical  pow- 
ers, which  give  this  history  a  degree  of  interest  and  a  permanent  value 
possessed  by  no  other  record  of  the  decline  and  fall  of  the  Roman  Com- 
monwealth. "  Dr.  Mommsen's  work,"  as  Dr.  Schmitz  remarks  in  the 
introduction,  "  though  the  production  of  a  man  of  most  profound  and  ex- 
tensive learning  and  knowledge  of  the  world,  is  not  as  much  designed  for 
the  professional  scholar  as  for  intelligent  readers  of  all  classes  who  take 
an  interest  in  the  history  of  by-gone  ages,  and  are  inclined  there  to  seek 
information  that  may  guide  them  safely  through  the  perplexing  mazes  of 
modern  history." 

CRITICAL  NOTICES. 

"  A  work  of  the  very  highest  merit ;  its  learning  is  exact  and  profound  ;  its  narrative  fuU 
of  genius  and  skill ;  its  descriptions  of  men  are  admirably  -i-ivid.  We  wish  to  place  on 
record  our  opinion  that  Dr.  Mommsen's  is  by  far  the  best  history  of  the  Decline  and  Fall 
of  the  Roman  Commonwealth."  —  London  Titties. 

"This  is  the  best  history  of  the  Roman  RepubHc,  taking  the  work  on  the  whole  — the 
author's  complete  mastery  of  his  subject,  the  variety  of  his  gifts  and  acquirements,  his 
graphic  power  in  the  delineation  of  national  and  individual  character,  and  the  vivid  interest 
which  he  inspires  in  every  portion  of  his  book.  He  is  without  an  equal  in  his  own  sphere." 
—  Edinbn>sh  Review. 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS,  Publishers, 

743  AND  745  Broadway,  New  York. 


A  New  Edition,  Library  Style, 


%\i  I^isforg  of  (|ppprp. 

By  Prof.  Dr.  EEHST  CTJETinS. 

Translated  by  Adolphus  William  Ward,  M.  A.,  Fellow  of  St.  Peter's  College,  Cam- 
bridge, Prof,  of  History  in  Owen's  College,  Manchester. 

UNIFORM  WITH  MOMMSEN'S  HISTORY  OF  ROME. 
Five  volumes,  crown  8vo,  gilt  top.  Price  per  set,  $10.00. 


f"  Curtius's  History  of  Greece  is  similar  in  plan  and  purpose  to  Mommsen's 
History  of  Rome,  with  which  it  deserves  to  rank  in  every  respect  as  one  of 
the  great  masterpieces  of  historical  literature.  Avoiding  the  minute  de- 
tails which  overburden  other  similar  works,  it  groups  together  in  a  very 
picturesque  manner  all  the  important  events  in  the  history  of  this  king- 
dom, which  has  exercised  such  a  wonderful  influence  upon  the  world's 
civilization.  The  narrative  of  Prof.  Curtius's  work  is  flowing  and  ani- 
mated, and  the  generalizations,  although  bold,  are  philosophical  and 
sound. 

CRITICAL  NOTICES. 

"  Professor  Curtius's  eminent  scholarship  is  a  sufficient  guarantee  for  the  trustworthines* 
of  his  histoiy,  while  the  skill  with  which  he  groups  his  facts,  and  his  effective  mode  of  narrat- 
ing them,  combine  to  render  it  no  less  readable  than  sound.  Prof.  Curtius  everj'where 
maintains  the  true  dignity  and  impartiality  of  history,  and  it  is  evident  his  sympathies  are 
on  the  side  of  justice,  humanity,  and  progress."  — London  AthencEiitn. 

"  We  cannot  express  our  opinion  of  Dr.  Curtius's  book  better  than  by  saying  that  it  may 
be  fitly  ranked  witli  Theodor  Mommsen's  great  work."  —  London  Spectator. 

"As  an  introduction  to  the  study  of  Grecian  history,  no  previous  work  is  comparable  to 
the  present  for  vivacity  and  picturesque  beauty,  while  in  sound  le.irning  and  accuracy  of 
statement  it  is  not  inferior  to  the  elaborate  productions  which  enrich  the  literature  of  the 
age."  —  N.  Y.  Daily  Tribune. 

"The  History  of  Greece  is  treated  by  Dr.  Curtius  so  broadly  and  freely  in  the  spirit  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  that  it  becomes  in  his  hands  one  of  the  worthiest  and  most  instruct- 
ive branches  of  study  for  all  who  desire  something  more  than  a  knowledge  of  isolated  facts 
for  their  education.  This  translation  oujht  to  become  a  regular  part  of  the  accepted  course 
of  reading  for  young  men  at  college,  and  for  all  who  are  in  training  for  the  free  political 
life  of  our  country."  —  N.  V.  Evening  Post. 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS,  Publishers, 

743  AND  745  Broadway,  New  Yokx. 


'*ji  UM>rk  of  strange  power  and  poetry .'^—N .  Y.  Worioj 


THE     COSSAC 


TRANSLATED    BY 


EUGENE    SCHUYLER,   Ph.D., 
Front  the  Russian  of  Count  Tolstoy, 

I  Tol.,  Bmall  12mo,  cloth,    .......       $1.38 


"  The  translation  is  excellent,  althougii  the  Russian  flavor  still  remains. 
Yet  this  rather  heiijhtens  than  mars  the  fascination  of  the  book." 

— Baltimore  Gazette. 

"A  story  of  high  merit  and  well-sustained  interest." — P  .ila.  Btdhtin. 

"  The  Cossacks  is  a  novel  likely  to  please  a  much  wider  circle  of 
readers  in  this  country  than  anything  that  the  more  famous  novelist 
(Turguenief)  has  done,  than  any  other  Russian  novel  which  has  been 
translated,  indeed,  including  even  the  stories  of  Pushkin." 

—N.   y.  Evening  Post. 

"The  characters  are  all  sketched  by  a  master  hand,  and  the  story, 
without  being  artistically  woven,  is  full  of  living  interest  and  warmth,  and 
we  thank  Mr.  Schuyler  for  breaking  up  this  new  ground,  and  ho])e  he  will 
follow  up  the  lead,  for  he  ha5  whet  our  appetites  for  more  of  this  brilliant 
writer's  work." — New  York  Herald. 

"  Its  interest,  besides  the  interest  of  the  qualities  we  have  mentioned, 
resides  in  its  broad  and  firm,  yet  delicate  and  subtle  portraiture  ;  and  apart 
from  its  novel  characteristics,  it  should  be  welcome  for  the  acquaintance  it 
enables  one  to  make  of  the  different  personages  it  so  admirably  sketches." 

— New  York  World. 

*•  The  story  is  one  that  American  readers  will  enjoy,  not  only  becau<;e 
it  is  in  many  respects  a  masterpiece  of  literary  work,  but  al.so  because  it 
takes  them  into  scenes  entirely  new  to  them,  and  among  characters  ai 
strange  as  the  scenes  in  which  they  are  placed." — New  Haven  Palladium, 


*0*  77ie  above  book  for  sale  by  all  booksellers,  or  ivill  be  sent,  ^st  or  ejt/tlU 
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Messrs.  CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

publish,  under  the  general  title  of 

The  campaigns  of  the  CIVIL  WAR, 

A  Series  of  volumes,  contributed  by  a  number  of  leading 
actors  in  and  students  of  the  great  conflict  of  i86i-'65,  with 
a  view  to  bringing  together,  for  the  first  time,  a  full  and 
authoritative  military  history  of  the  suppression  of  the 
Rebellion. 

The  final  and  exhaustive  form  of  this  great  narrative,  in  which  every 
doubt  shaH  be  settled  and  every  detail  covered,  may  be  a  possibility 
only  of  the  future.  But  it  is  a  matter  for  surprise  that  twenty  years 
after  the  beginning  of  the  Rebellion,  and  when  a  whole  generation 
has  grown  up  needing  such  knowledge,  there  is  no  authority  which  is 
at  the  same  time  of  the  highest  rank,  intelligible  and  trustworthy,  and 
to  which  a  reader  can  turn  for  any  general  view  of  the  field. 

The  many  reports,  regimental  histories,  memoirs,  and  other  materi- 
als of  value  for  special  passages,  require,  for  their  intelligent  reading, 
an  ability  to  combine  and  proportion  them  which  the  ordinary  reader 
does  not  possess.  There  have  been  no  attempts  at  general  histories 
which  have  supplied  this  satisfactorily  to  any  large  part  of  the  public. 
Undoubtedly  there  has  been  no  such  narrative  as  would  be  especially 
welcome  to  men  of  the  new  generation,  and  would  be  valued  by  a  very 
great  class  of  readers  ; — and  there  has  seemed  to  be  great  danger  that 
the  time  would  be  allowed  to  pass  when  it  would  be  possible  to  give 
to  such  a  work  the  vividness  and  accuracy  that  come  from  personal 
recollection.     These  facts  led  to  the  conception  of  the  present  work. 

From  every  department  of  the  Government,  from  the  officers  of  the 
army,  and  from  a  great  number  of  custodians  of  records  and  special  infor- 
mation everywhere,  both  authors  and  publishers  have  received  every  aid 
that  could  be  asked  in  this  undertaking ;  and  in  announcing  the  issue  of 
the  work  the  publishers  take  this  occasion  to  convey  the  thanks  which 
the  authors  have  had  individual  opportunities  to  express  elsewhere. 


The  volumes  are  duodecimos  of  about  250  pages  each, 
illustrated  by  maps  and  plans  prepared  under  the  direction 
of  the  authors. 

The  price  of  each  volume  is  $1.00. 


The  /allowing  volumes  are  now  ready  i 

I,— The  Oiifbrealc  of  BeheUion.  By  John  G.  Nicoi.av, 
Esq.,  Private  Secretary  to  President  Lincoln;  late  Consul- 
General  to  France,  etc. 

A  preliminary  volume,   describing  the   openins;  of  the  war,  and   covering   th» 
period  trom  the  election  of  Lincoln  to  the  end  of  the  first  battle  of  Bull  Run. 


J[I,—Froin  Fort  Henry  to  Corinth.  By  the  Hon.  M. 
F.  Force,  Justice  of  the  Superior  Court,  Cincmnatti;  lata 
Brigadier-General  and  Uvt.  Maj.  Gen'l,  U.S.V.,  commanding 
First  Division,  17th  Corps:  in  1862,  Lieut.  Colonel  of  the 
20th  Ohio,  commanding  tiie  regiment  at  Shiloh ;  Treasurer  of 
the  Society  of  tlie  Army  of  the  Tennessee. 

The  narrative  of  events  in  the  West  from  the  Summer  of  1861  to  May,  i86a: 
tovering  the  capture  of  FtS.  Henry  and  Doaelson,  the  Battle  of  ShJoh,  etc.,  etc. 

Ill,— The  Peninsula.      By  Alexander  S.  Webb,  LL.D., 

president  of  the  College  of  tlie  City  of  New  York :  Assistant 
Chief  of  Artillery,  Army  of  the  Potomac,  iS6i-'62  ;  Inspector 
General  Fifth  Army  Corps;  General  commanding  2d  Div., 
2d  Corps;  Major  General  Assigned,  and  Chief  of  Staff,  Army 
of  the  Potomac. 

The  histor>-  of  McClellan's  Peninsula  Campaign,  from  his  appointment  to  tho 
e  id  of  the  Seven  Days'  Fight. 

JV.—The  Army  iinder  Tope.  By  John  C.  Ropes,  Esq., 
of  the  Military  Historical  Society  of  Massachusetts,  the  Massa- 
chusetts Historical  Society,  etc 

From  the  appointment  of  Pope  to  command  the  Army  of  Virginia,  to  the  appoint- 
ment of  McClellau  to  the  general  command  iii  September,  1862 

V.—Tfie  Antiefam  and  FredericJcsJmrfj.  By  Francis 
WiNxnROP  Palfrey,  Bvt.  Brigadier  Gen'l,  U.S.V.,  and  form- 
erly  Colonel  20th  Mass.  Infantry ;  Lieut.  Col  of  the  20th 
Massachusetts  at  the  Battle  of  the  Antietam ;  Member  of 
the  Military  Historical  Society  of  Massachusetts,  of  the  Massa- 
chusetts Historical  Society,  etc. 

From  the  appointment  of  Mcdellan  to  the  general  command,  September,  1862,  to 
the  end  of  the  batde  of  Fredericksburg. 

n.—Chancpllorsville  and  Geffi/sburg.  By  Abnfr 
DouBLEDAY,  Bvt.  Maj.  Gen'l,  U.S.A.,  and  Maj.  Gen  1, 
U.S.  V.  ;  commanding  the  First  Corps  at  Gettysburg,  etc. 

From  the  appointment  of  Hoolcer,  through  the  campaigns  of  ChancellorsvIUe  and 
Gettysburg,  to  the  retreat  of  I-ee  after  the  latter  battle. 

VII.— The  Army  of  the  Cumherland.     By  Henry  M. 

Cist,  Brevet  Brig.  Gen'l  U.S.V.  ;  A.A.G.  on  the  staff  of 
Major  Gen'l  Rosecrans,  and  afterwards  on  that  of  Major  Gen'l 
Thomas  ;  Corresi:)onding  Secretary  of  the  Society  of  the  Army 
of  the  Cumberland. 

From  the  formation  of  the  Army  of  the  Cumberland  to  the  end  of  the  battles  al 
Chattanooga,  November,  1863. 


VIII.— The  Mississippi,  By  Francts  Vinton  Greene, 
Lieut,  of  Engineers,  U.  S.  Army;  lale  Military  Attache  to  the 
U.  S.  Legation  in  St.  Petersburg  ;  Author  of  "  The  Russian 
Army  and  its  Campaigns  in  Turkey  in  1877-7S,"  and  of 
*'Army  Life  in  Russia." 

An  account  of  the  operations — especially  at  Vicksburg  and  Port  Hudson — by 
which  tlie  Mississippi  River  and  its  shores  were  restored  to  the  control  of  tlic  Union. 

IX, — Atlanta,  By  the  Hon.  Jacob  D.  Cox,  Ex-Governor  of 
Ohio;  late  Secretary  of  tlie  Interior  of  the  United  States; 
Major  General  U.  S.V. ,  commanding  Twenty- third  Corps 
during  the  campaigns  of  Atlanta  and  the  Carolinas,  etc.,  etc. 

From  Sherman's  first  advance  into  Georgia  in  May,  1S64,  to  the  beginning  of 
the  March  to  the  Sea, 

X.—T7ie  3Iarch  to  fJie  Sea— Franklin  and  Nashville. 

By  the  Hon.  J.\COB  D.   Co.x. 

From  the  beginning  of  the  March  to  the  Sea  to  the  surrender  of  Johnston- ' 
including  also  the  operations  of  Thomas  in  Tennessee. 

XI,— Tlie  Shenandoah  Valley  in  1804.  TJie  Cain- 
paign  of  Sheridan.  By  George  E.  Pond,  Esq.,  Asso- 
ciate Editor  of  the  Army  and  Navy  Journal. 

XII, — Tlie  Virginia  Campaign  of  64  and '65,  TJie 
Army  of  the  Potomac  and  the  Army  of  the 
Janus,  By  Andrew  A.  Humphreys,  Brigadier  General 
and  Bvt.  Major  General,  U.  S.  A.  ;  late  Chief  of  Engineers; 
Chief  of  Staff,  Army  of  the  Potomac,  1S63-64;  commanding 
Second  Corps,  i864-'65,  etc.,  etc. 

Statistical   Becord    of  the   Armies    of   the   United 

States,     By  Frederick  Phisterer,  late  Captain  U.  S.  A. 

This  Record  includes  the  figures  of  the  quotas  and  men  actually  furnished  by 
all  States;  a  list  of  all  organizations  mustered  into  the  U.  S.  service;  the  strength 
of  the  army  at  various  periods  ;  its  organization  in  armies,  corps,  etc.;  the  divisions 
of  the  country  into  departments,  etc.;  chronological  list  of  all  engagements,  with  the 
losses  in  each  ;  tabulated  statements  of  all  losses  in  the  war,  with  the  causes  of 
death,  etc.;  full  lists  of  all  general  officers,  and  an  immense  amount  of  other  valuable 
statistical  matter  relatijig  to  the  War. 


The  complete  Set,  thirteen  volumes,  in  a  box.     Price,  $12.50 
Single  volumes,       ......        i.co 

***   T/te  above  books  Jar  sale  by  all  booksellers,  or  will  be  sent,  post-^aid, 
v^n  receipt  0/  price,  by 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS,  Publishers, 

743  AND  745  Broadway,  New  York, 


HOW    COMPLETE. 

In  three  volumes,  I2mo,  with  Maps  and  Plans, 

THE 

Havy  in  the  Civil  War 

nnHE  WORK  OF  THE  NAVY  in  the  suppression  of  the  Rebellion  was 
^  certainly  not  less  remarkable  than  that  of  the  Army.  The  same 
forces  which  developed  from  our  volunteers  some  of  the  finest  bodies  of 
soldiers  in  military  history,  were  shown  quite  as  wonderfully  in  the  creation 
of  a  Navy,  which  was  to  cope  for  the  first  time  with  the  problems  of  modern 
warfare. 

The  facts  that  the  Civil  War  was  the  first  great  conflict  in  which  steam 
was  the  motive  power  of  ships  ;  that  it  was  marked  by  the  introduction  of 
the  ironclad ;  and  that  it  saw,  for  the  first  time,  the  attempt  to  blockade 
such  a  vast  length  of  hostile  coast — will  make  it  an  epoch  for  the  techinal 
student  everywhere. 

But  while  the  Army  has  been  fortunate  in  the  number  and  character  of 
those  who  have  contributed  to  its  written  history,  the  Navy  has  been  com- 
paratively without  annalists.  During  a  recent  course  of  publications  on 
the  military  operations  of  the  war,  the  publishers  were  in  constant  receipt 
of  letters  pointing  out  this  fact,  and  expressing  the  wish  that  a  complete 
naval  history  of  the  four  years  might  be  written  by  competent  hands.  An 
effort  made  in  this  direction  resulted  in  the  cordial  adoption  and  carrying 
out  of  plans  by  which  Messrs.  CH.\RLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS  are 
enabled  to  announce  the  completion  of  a  work  of  the  highest  authority  and 
interest,  giving  the  whole  narrative  of  Naval  Operations  from  1861  to  1865. 

I.    THE    BLOCKADE    AND     THE    CRUISERS.— By    Pro- 
fessor J.   Russell  Soley,  U.  S.  Navy. 

II.    THE      ATLANTIC     COAST.— By     Rear-Admiral     Daniel 
Ammen,  U.  S.  Navy. 

III.    THE    GULF  AND    INLAND  WATERS.— By  Commander 
A.  T,  Mahan,  U.  S.  Navy. 

V^niforni  xvlth  "  Tlie  Campaigns  of  ihe  Civil  War,"  ifi/7*  maps 
and  diagrams  prepared  under  the  direction  of  the  A.uthors, 

Price   per  Volume,  SI.OO. 

CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S   SONS,   Publishers, 
7^3   i&   7^5  Broadivay,  Xcw   York, 


THE 

Navy  in  the  Civil  War 

I -THE  BLOCKADE  AND  THE  CRUISERS. 

By  Professor  J.  Russell  Soley,  U.  S.  Navy. 

"The  book  is  well  arranged,  written  clearly,  without  technical  terms, 
and  shows  great  familiarity  with  the  subject.  It  is  marked  by  thoroughness 
of  preparation,  sound  judgment,  and  admirable  impartiality.  It  is  a  promis- 
ing beginning  of  the  projected  series  ;  and  if  the  other  volumes  prove 
worthy  of  this,  they  will  make  a  valuable  addition  to  the  Army  series, 
which  has  proved  so  useful  and  popular." — The  Nation. 

II -THE  ATLANTIC  COAST. 

By  Real-Admiral  Daniel  AmiMEX,  U.  S.  Navy. 

Admiral  Ammen's  history  of  the  naval  operations  on  the  Atlantic 
coast,  from  1861  to  the  close  of  the  war,  describe  the  active  work  of  the 
navy  in  attacking  the  defensive  strongholds  of  the  Confederacy  from 
Hampton  Roads  to  Florida  Keys.  It  includes  a  full  account  of  the  long 
siege  of  Charleston,  and  the  scarcely  less  arduous  operations  against 
Fort  Fisher,  the  capture  of  Hatteras  Inlet,  Roanoke  Island  and  Newbern, 
and  other  minor  movements  along  the  coast. 

III.-THE  GULF  AND  INLAND  WATERS. 

By  Commander  A.  T.  Mahan,  U.  S.  Navy. 

The  achievements  of  the  Naval  force  on  the  Mississippi  and  its  tributaries, 
and  on  the  Gulf  and  the  Red  River,  either  independently  or  in  co-oper- 
ation with  the  Army,  form  one  of  the  most  thrilling  chapters  in  the  history 
of  the  Civil  War.  The  exploits  of  Farragut,  Foote  and  Porter,  with  their  ^ 
gallant  crews  and  improvised  vessels,  teem  with  acts  of  daring,  marvelous 
escapes,  and  terrific  encounters.  Commander  Mahan  has  done  full  justice 
to  this  side  of  his  narrative,  but  he  has  given  at  the  same  time  a  record  of 
this  part  of  the  war  that  has  greater  claims  to  historic  value  than  any  which 
have  preceded  it. 

Each  One  Volume,    1  2mo,  with    Maps  and   Plans. 

Price  per  Volume,   $I.OO. 


CHARLES   SCRIBNgR'S   SONS,  Publishers, 
74^  S  745  Brondtoajf,  New  Yorh. 


AUTHORIZED  AMERICAN  EDITIONS. 

THE  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND, 

Trom  the   Fall  of  "Woolsey  to  the  Death  of  Elizabeth. 


TSE  COMPLETE  WORK  IN  TWELVE  VOZUJUES. 


By  JAMES   ANTHONY   FROUDE,  M-  A. 


Mr.  Froude  is  a  pictorial  historian,  and  his  skill  in  description  and  full- 
ness of  knowledge  make  his  work  abound  in  scenes  and  passages  that  are 
almost  new  to  the  general  reader.  We  close  his  pages  with  unfeigned  re- 
gret, and  we  bid  him  good  speed  on  his  noble  mission  of  exploring  the 
sources  of  English  history  in  one  of  its  most  remarkable  periods.  —  Brii' 
ish  Quarterly  Review. 

THE  NEW  LIBRARY  EDITION. 

Extra  cloth,  gilt  top,  and  uniform  in  general  style  with  the  re-issue  of 
Momnisen's  Rome  and  Curtius's  Greece.  Complete  in  12  vols.  i2mo, 
in  a  box.     Sold  only  in  sets.     Price  per  set,  $18.00. 

Note.  The  old  Library,  Chelsea,  and  Popular  Ediiiotu  will  be  discontinued.  A  few 
uts  and  single  volumes  can  still  be  supplied. 


SHORT  STUDIES  ON  GREAT  SUBJECTS. 

THE  NEW  LIBRARY  EDITION.  Three  vols.  I2m0. 
Uniform  in  General  Style  with  the  New  Library  Edi- 
tion of  the  History  of  England.      Per  vol $1.50 


THE    ENGLISH    IN    IRELAND 

During  the  Eighteenth  Century. 
Three  vols.  izmo.     New  Library  Edition.     Per  vol $1.50 


*^  The  above  books  for  sale  by  all  booksellers,  or  will  be  sent,  post  or  e»» 
fress  cAar^'es  paid,  upon  receipt  of  the  price  by  the  Publishers, 

CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S   SONS, 

743  AND  745  Broadway,  New  York. 


'*A  GRijAT  SUOCCSS/'-Pall  Stall  OazatML 


A      liT  E  "VST      ^3Sri3       CIiEJLI»EI?,       Tr;i3ITZOar. 

MR.    EUGENE    SCHUYLER'S 

TURKISTAN: 

Notes   of   a  Journey   in   1873,   in   the  Russian   Province  of 

Turkistan,  the  Khanate,*  of  Khokan  and  Bukhara, 

and  Provinces  of  Kuldja. 

By  EUGENE   SCHUYLER,  Ph.D., 

Formerly  Secretary  of  the  American  Legation  at  St.  Petersburg,  now  Consul-GoMlft 

at  Constantinople. 

OPINIONS    OF   THE    PRESS. 

Front  the  London  Times. 
"Mr.  Schuyler  will  be  ranked   among  the  most  accomplished  of  hving  traveler*. 
Many  parts  of  his  book  will  be  found  of  interest,  even  by  the   most  exacting  of  genera] 
readers ;  and,  as  a  whole,  it  is  incomparably  the  most  valuable  record  of  Central  Asia 
which  has  been  published  in  this  country." 

Fro7n  the  N.  V.  Evening  Post. 
*'Th»  author's  chief  aim  appears  to  have  been  to  do  all  that  he  says  he  tried  to  do, 
and  to  do  greatly  more  beside —namely,  to  study  everything  there  was  to  study  in  the 
countries  which  he  visited,  and  to  tell  the  world  all  about  it  in  a  most  interesting  way. 
He  is,  indeed,  a  model  traveler,  and  he  has  written  a  model  book  of  travels,  in  which 
every  line  is  interesting,  and  from  which  nothing  that  any  reader  can  want  to  hear  about 
has  been  excluded.' 

Mr.  Glaiistone  in  the  *^  Contemporary  Revie7i>." 
"  One  of  the  most  solid  and  painstaking  works  which  have  been  published  among  uf 
In  recent  years." 

From  the  New  York  Times. 

"Its  descriptioE-,  of  ths  country  and  of  the  people  living  in  it  are  always  interesting 
amd  frequently  amusing  ;  but  it  is  easy  to  see  that  they  have  been  written  by  one  who  ii 
not  only  so  thoroughly  cosmopolitan  as  to  know  intuitively  what  is  worth  telling  and  whaf 
had  better  be  omitted,  but  who  is,  also,  so  practiced  a  writer  as  to  understand  predselj 
'.ow  to  set  forth  what  he  has  to  say  in  the  most  effective  manner." 

From  the  Atlantic  Monthly. 
"Undoubtedly  the  most  thoroughly  brilliant  and  entertaining  work  3n  Turkirta* 
which  has  yet  been  given  to  the  English-speaking  world." 

From  the  Independent. 
"It  is  fortunate  that  a  record  of  the  sort  appears  at  this  time,  and  doub'.jr  fortunata 
ihat  it  come?  from  the  hand  of  so  wise,  well-informed,  and  industrious  a  traveler  and 
diplomat" 

From  the  Neiv  York  World. 

"  Its  author  has  the  eye  and  pen  of  a  journalist,  and  sees  at  once  what  is  wori. 
•ecing,  and  recites  his  impressions  m  the  most  graphic  manner." 

Two  vols.  8vo.    With  three  Maps,  and  numerous  Illustrations, 

attractively  bound  in  cloth,  price  reduced  from  $7.50  to  $5. 
•,*  The  above  book  far  sale  by  all  booksellers,  or    will  be  sent,  post  or  exprtit 
charges  paid,  upon  receipt  of  the  price  by  tlie  publishers, 

CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SOxNS, 

743  AND  745  Broadway,  New  York. 


LIFE    OF 

Lord    Lawrence 

BT 

R.    BOSWORTH    SMITH,   M.A., 

LATE   FELLOW   OF   TRINITY   COLLEGE;   ASSISTANT   MASTER  AT   HARROV* 

SCHOOL. 


With  Maps  and  Portraits,  2  vols,,  8vo,  $5.00, 


"As  a  biography,  the  work  is  an  inthralling  one,  rich  in 
anecdotes  and  incidents  of  Lord  Lawrence's  tempestuous  nature 
and  beneficent  career  that  bring  into  bold  relief  his  strongly- 
marked  and  almost  colossal  individuality,  and  rich  also  in  in- 
stances of  his  courage,  his  fortitude,  his  perseverance,  his  self- 
control,  his  magnanimity,  and  in  the  details  of  the  splendid 
results  of  his  masterful  and  masterly  policy.  .  .  .  We  know 
of  no  work  on  India  to  which  the  reader  can  refer  with  so  great 
certainty  for  full  and  dispassionate  information  relative  to  the 
government  of  the  country,  the  characteristics  of  its  people,  and 
the  fateful  events  of  the  forty  eventful  years  of  Lord  Lawrence's 
Indian  career." — Harper's  Magazine. 

"John  Lawrence,  the  name  by  which  the  late  Viceroy  of  India 
will  always  be  best  known,  has  been  fortunate  in  his  biographer, 
Mr.  Bosworth  Smith,  who  is  an  accomplished  writer  and  a  faith- 
ful, unflinching  admirer  of  his  hero.  He  has  produced  an  enter- 
taining as  well  as  a  valuable  book  ;  the  general  reader  will 
certainly  find  it  attractive  ;  the  student  of  recent  history  will 
discover  in  its  pages  matters  of  deep  interest  to  him." — London 
Daily  Telegraph. 

*^*  For  sale  by  all  booksellers^  or  sent,  post-paid^  upon  receipt  of  price,  by 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS,  Publishers, 

743  AND  745  Broadway,  New  York. 


i 


4 


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Return  to  desk  from  which  borrowed. 
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